


Tiene novio y todo

by Chestnut_filly



Series: Actual Fic [4]
Category: Y tu mamá también (2001)
Genre: A Very Large Gap, Bisexuality, Canon Character of Color, Canon-Typical Homophobia, College, F/M, Fic, Gap Filler, Growing Up, Identity Issues, M/M, Mexico, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-12 14:57:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9077659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chestnut_filly/pseuds/Chestnut_filly
Summary: Julio thinks he's reached the truth, and it's way less awesome than rule ten of the Manifiesto Charolastra ever made it sound.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I would be remiss in starting this story without some acknowledgements first! I would like to thank Pax and her lovely 'Experiments in Writer's Block' for being a jumping-off point for the characterizations in this fic, the fantastic evol_love for patiently offering advice and supplying chapter breaks, and Alyssa, for being glorious and beautiful and endlessly helpful.
> 
>  
> 
> ETA: There's a little mini-playlist for this fic up [at my tumblr](http://chestnut-podfic.tumblr.com/post/157877331333/tiene-novio-y-todo-is-about-to-get-knocked-off-my) with _only three_ No Te Va Gustar breakup songs, which I feel shows great restraint.

 

Roughly three weeks after returning from Boca del cielo with Tenoch, Julio, in the kind of very painful moment of self-understanding that comes from _not_ being very drunk in the midst of a _lot_ of very drunk people, realizes that he is unhappy.

 _Infeliz_. It’s not the same as sad; it’s not the same as grieving; it’s maybe a little the same as depressed, but shit _._ He’s not going to go running to a shrink the minute he feels a little off-kilter. But.

Unhappy. It’s sitting in a party at Saba’s, holding a cup full of shit beer and looking at a joint full of excellent weed, surrounded by people who are just as high and wasted as he’d ever been at one of these bashes, and just wanting to go home. It’s sitting on Saba’s beat-up kitchen table and staring at that awful poster of el Che and not having one single quip come to mind. It’s sitting on the kitchen table, beer in hand and joint not a foot away, and not giving a fuck because he’s _lonely_.

And he’s lonely because Tenoch isn’t here. And Tenoch hasn’t been here. And, if Julio is very, very honest with himself, Tenoch probably won’t be here again. Ever.

La neta. Cool but unreachable. Well. Julio thinks he’s just reached the truth, and it’s way less awesome than rule ten of the manifiesto Charolastra ever made it sound.

 

*

 

Rewind a little. Roughly two days after returning from Boca del cielo, Julio looks at himself in the mirror, shakes his head like a dog, and goes to the country club.

It’s a Monday. The gates are closed. Tenoch should be by within half an hour, depending on how late he stayed up. He’ll pull out his keycard and deal with some ribbing from Julio about fresa huevones who can’t drag their asses out of bed until the maids tip them out with the sheets.

Julio takes up his normal position on the bench between the oleander bushes guarding the curb, where he doesn't look like a loiterer but Tenoch can see him as he comes up the drive. It’s past noon, and the sun is beating down harshly. Julio looks at his forearms, wrapped around his knees, and thinks about how Tenoch is always covered in zinc sunscreen when he swims. Thinks about the stark white of the diving boards and the expensive eggshell of the pool tiles and the snowy cotton towels. Thinks about how white the skin of Luisa’s breasts was, pale against his hands. Thinks about the milkiness of Tenoch’s legs, high up, and how in the dark when he laid his hand there-

Julio doesn’t own a watch, but when the sprinklers on the club lawn shut off and the shadows  from the guard house start creeping up the tarmac, he figures it’s time to go.

Maybe Tenoch will be at Saba’s already. It’s summer. He might be.

 

*

 

Tenoch is not at Saba’s. He’s not at home, either. He’s not at the club, he’s not with Ana, he’s not even with Daniel. Not for four whole days.

“It takes a lot of work to not be in that many places at once,” Daniel says, leaning on his doorjamb. He has one hip cocked, and messy hair, and a very thin T-shirt.

“What does that even mean?” Julio asks. “I bet it’s his damn father, some stupid trip or something.”

“Whatever it is, it’s nice to see you at least, for once. You’ve come by every day for the last three days looking for Tenoch, _Charolastra,_ and that’s three times more than I’ve seen you for at least a month,” Daniel says, and there’s something hard in the slash of his mouth. “Since we graduated, in fact.”

Julio jerks his eyes up, guilty.

The day before Tenoch and Julio and Daniel had graduated, the three of them had gotten absolutely plastered on Tenoch’s dad’s American whiskey. Tenoch had said, “One last fuck-you to those _maricas_ and priests,” and Daniel, who had gone to a Catholic school as a kid before joining Julio at ENP 1, had whooped and tossed back his shot immediately. Julio, who'd fought viciously from age 12 to get into an escuela nacional on a science track and not a preparatoria, was just hoping to God UNAM would come through, and drank his with all the abandon only a teenager bent on avoidance can muster.

Somewhere around shot god-knows, way-too-many, he’d started feeling the same sort of nauseous dread he felt whenever graduation came up, and he thought about Tenoch’s dad and his Harvard degree, and Tenoch’s dad and Tenoch’s ability to stand up to him.

At that point, though, Daniel had, out of nowhere, set down his glass so hard it dented the cherrywood coffee table, balled his fists, and announced, “I’m gay.”

All other attempts at having feelings in the room had screeched to a halt. Julio and Tenoch rushed to reassure him that of course it didn’t matter, of course, what kind of mari- uh, what kind of friends would they be if it did, Charolastra, no.

Daniel walked home with Julio that night, passing through the orangey pools of streetlamp light and bouncing periodically, like he just couldn’t stay on the ground, swinging on the signposts. Julio watched him and felt. Things he couldn’t name.

“Will you come out to everyone else?” he asked, and Daniel grinned fiercely.

“Everyone else had better watch out,” he said, and Julio had looked at his fists clenched in the moonlight and thought about his words and Catholic school and beaches and Patria Jiménez and fear and dents in coffee tables, and wrapped his arms around himself.

“That’s cool, man. That’s really just fucking cool.”

In his own bed that night, he’d stared up at the ceiling and wondered why the fuck he was crying.

And one month, two weeks, and one day later, he realizes that he hasn’t actually seen Daniel since then.

“Uh.” He looks at Daniel. That hard set to his mouth was definitely not imagined. “Oh. Shit _,_ cabrón, I’m sorry. I’ve just been really-“

“What, busy?” Daniel has his arms crossed, not moving from the doorway. “Must’ve been some fucking excitement, being so _busy_ in the summer.”

“I was- well, I was actually on a road trip,” Julio says, and, “I could tell you about it?” And he immediately just wants to slap himself, _fuck_ , he doesn’t, he really doesn’t, he just. Doesn’t-

But Daniel is uncrossing his arms and has his left eyebrow raised, and Julio knows that means he’s curious, and Daniel says, “Come in, then, and tell me about it. And if you’re lucky you can come by again tomorrow.”

And Julio comes in.

 

*

 

He doesn’t, actually. Tell Daniel about it, that is. Not that first time, anyway- Julio’s kind of an idiot with human beings when they’re not broken up into individual cells, but knows he’d better catch up with Daniel, fast. A month and a half without talking to a fellow Charolastra- that’s just not cool.

And Daniel, well. There’s a lot to catch up on, there.

They start with school, sitting on Daniel’s father’s hideous leather couch in the living, some dark brown behemoth that is the only point of misguided luxury in the whole room. Daniel’s place always feels a little like sitting in an unfurnished apartment.

“I’ve decided on UACM- it’s cheap, it’s close, and I can do a little messing around while I decide what I _really_ want to do,” Daniel says. “You?”

Julio shifts uncomfortably. “Well, UNAM did end up coming through because of the ENP, you know, but Ibero actually offered me a place too, with a scholarship. So. I haven’t decided.”

Both of Daniel’s eyebrows are very high. “ _Ibero_ offered you a spot, güey _?"_

Julio shifts uncomfortably. “They have a really good bioengineering program,” he says, like an explanation.

“No mames, Julio, they have a really good _everything_. Did you tell Tenoch?”

“No,” Julio says. He didn’t tell Tenoch. Tenoch didn’t like talking about university, it always devolved into screaming about his father and ITAM and la pinche economía. He’d told Luisa, somewhere on a nondescript dirt road heading west, that he wished his father had never gone to college, the prick. Julio had looked out the window, and thought of his mother and her little secretary’s desk, unchanging since he was a little kid and crawling around underneath it after school, playing dragon slayer and vaquero and doctor and scientist. He hadn’t said anything.

“O-kay,” Daniel drawls, one eyebrow up again, but he doesn’t push. Julio casts around for somewhere else to push the conversation, somewhere that isn’t school and isn't Tenoch and isn’t the _trip_ , and blurts, “Have you come out to your dad yet?”

Daniel barks a laugh, and Julio wants to maybe go find a swimming pool and drown himself. “Sorry, vato- _sorry-”_ he says, but Daniel cuts him off.

“I’m going to tell that motherfucker that I’m a fancy little loca just as soon as I’ve got a job and a place of my own and a nice boyfriend to support me,” he says, grinning with teeth. “No, I haven’t told that fucking son of a bitch, because he’s going to kick me out on my ass as soon as I tell him I’ve even been _thinking_ about other men, and be happy I’ve finally given him the excuse.”

“Fuck,” Julio says, feeling gut-punched.

“Right, fuck _him_ ,” Daniel says, still grinning that sharp smile that makes Julio think about jukeboxes and dents in coffee tables and sending in applications and never telling Tenoch. “I’m getting the last word in that argument, so I have to set it up right first.”

Julio looks at him and that smile, and thinks things about bravery that he’s sure Tenoch, Tenoch the writer, would be able to express better than he ever could.

“Yeah,” he says. “You tell that asshole.” And he’s feeling his throat closing up, and _why_ , why why why, and he casts around yet again, and asks, “Are you going to Saba’s party tonight?”

 

*

 

Daniel is going to Saba’s party that night, as it happens, but he leaves Julio at the door to dance with one of la Pecas _’_ boyfriend’s friends. La Pecas’ taste in boyfriends might be shit, but those boyfriends’ friends always turn out to be surprisingly cool.

Julio fixes himself a drink- rum and coke, light on the coke- and goes wandering. He’s looking for Tenoch. He tried to call him beforehand; Leo had said he wasn’t home.

The lights are low and the room is smoky, and the chatter of the guests drowns out the music but for the bass line, running through the floorboards and trembling up Julio’s legs. He runs into Saba, turns down some E and accepts a joint, and is just looking around for a place to sit and enjoy it when he runs right into Cecelia.

Cecelia. Shit.

She’s dressed up, one of her little cotton summer dresses that shows her collarbones and flirts around the bottom of her ass, and he looks at her and realizes he hasn’t so much as spoken to her since one short phone call the day after she got back from Italy a week ago. He looks at her and thinks about Tenoch talking about her flowered panties when she fucked him.

Her arms are crossed. The front of her dress is gaping out a bit, and he can see the very tops of her small breasts, fine, feathery hair glinting in the light.

“So I guess we should talk,” she says.

 

*

 

They go into the bathroom, as that’s the only locking door in Saba’s apartment. Cecelia perches on the edge of the sink. Julio stands awkwardly in front of the door. The light coming in through the slatted blinds from the street outside dashes orange across Cecelia’s nose and hair. He can’t see her expression clearly.

“So,” she says. Julio just stands there. He thinks of Tenoch yelling from the backseat of the car. He thinks of Tenoch on his knees apologizing in the street. He thinks of Luisa laughing at him at Boca del cielo and talking about Italian men over pozole in some nameless country town.

“So,” Cecelia says again. “I’m breaking up with you.”

That spurs him into some kind of action. “Cece- no, don’t, fuck. Don’t.” It’s the only word he can find.

“No,” she says, and her voice is flat. Normally, Cecelia has a bit of dryness to her tone, some archness that makes even her baby talk a little ironic. Now it has no inflection at all. “Ana and I did some talking while we were away.”

She swings her legs a little. The orange lamplight slips across her bare shoulders. “I know you slept with her.”

Julio was half-expecting this, but he still feels it rushing in his ears. Caught out.

“I know _you_ slept with Tenoch!” he retorts, only half below a yell.

“Well, then we’re all caught up, aren’t we?” Cecelia says, and suddenly she sounds _vicious_. “We’re both fucking hypocrites. I fuck your best friend, you fuck mine, we’re fucking _even_.” She pushes off the sink and comes to stand right in front of him, trembling a bit. She’s not crying even a little. Julio might be.

“I am so fucking angry with you, and I don’t care if that makes me a hypocrite,” she hisses. “All I care about is that I clearly shouldn’t have trusted some _little boy_ who can’t even stand up to his rich-kid friends once in awhile to tell the truth about anything!”

 _That_ makes him angry. “Fuck you, don’t talk about Tenoch that way!” he snaps, feeling tears fizzing in his sinuses and furious about it.

“‘Don’t talk about _Tenoch_ that way?’” Cecelia repeats, eyes narrow, jabbing the center of Julio’s chest with her index finger. “How about a _sorry_ , puto? How about something about _me_? How about something that makes me think I was ever important to you other than a pair of tits to fuck and then run and tell Prince Tenoch about, huh?”

“I’m- I’m sorry!” Julio’s actually shouting now, and he just hopes the music outside is loud enough to cover the noise. “I’m fucking _sorry_ , okay, _mierda_ , but I don’t know where you get off telling _me_ that when you fucked Tenoch just the same!”

“Maybe I wanted to see what all the fuss was about,” Cecelia says, voice cool and even once more. She’s still shaking. “Considering he was all that ever seemed to get your attention.”

Julio doesn’t say anything. He thinks about what he could say about fucking Ana. Getting attention. Yeah.

“I just didn’t want it to be this way,” he says, eventually. It’s true, after all.

Cecelia snorts a little, and it’s shaky too. “No. Me neither,” she says. She steps back, turning to brace her arms on the sink, looking down into the basin. “I deserved better. I did. But I guess you did too.”

“You do,” Julio says. He suddenly feels very strongly that he _has_ to say this. “You _do_. You deserve better than some me, you deserve someone who does more than fuck you and then forget about you as soon as you’re out of sight. Somebody more-” he breaks off, waves a hand around, unsure of where to go with that. Somebody more.

“Something to think about,” she says. “I don’t know. I spent all my time in Italy angry with Ana and angry with you and angry with myself. Ana and I made up- we understand each other. We get it. But I don’t understand you, and I don’t think you understand you, and until you do it’s like dating the abstract concept of a teenage boy. All parties and swearing and sex and drunk. Not a lot of fun.”

Julio stands there. He bites his lip. “I’m sorry,” he says again, uselessly.

Cecelia manages to laugh a little. She looks up from the sink, eye makeup a little smeared but still mostly intact.

“Yeah, well,” she says. “Me too. I hope-” and now it’s her turn to wave her hand, searching for the right words.

“I hope you figure it out,” she says, finally. “Maybe without travel. Makes things more dramatic than they have to be.” She squares her shoulders and flicks at the corners of her eyes with her nails, making the smudging look a bit more intentional. “I’m leaving now, Julio; I need the door.”

Julio stands aside, feeling numb. He reaches out and grabs her hand, though, when she brushes past him.

“I hope you figure it out, too,” he tells her.

She gives him a little quirk of the mouth and squeezes his fingers. “Yeah,” she says, and closes the door behind her.

Julio sits down on the toilet lid and stares at the blinds. Eventually, he pulls out his lighter and smokes his joint slowly. When someone finally bangs on the bathroom door loudly enough to dislodge him, he goes straight home. He lies in bed without sleeping for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the movie is implied to take place during the summer between Julio and Tenoch’s last two years of secundaria, but honestly that never made much sense to me, and I choose to interpret the whole café scene as them having fallen so out of touch that they didn’t even know which universities they ended up going to. It also allows me to age them up a year and put Julio in a group of more politically conscious people.    
>    
> As for the universities: UNAM is one of Mexico's national universities, the best university in Mexico, and widely considered one of the best Hispanophone universities in the entire world. It often works with special feeder high schools/academies, which is why it would "come through" for Julio. ITAM (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México) is also a very, very good university, with a pronounced focus on business, economy, and law, private and expensive. It’s also something of a feeder school to the Mexican Foreign Service and other bureaucratic posts. Eight secretaries of finance and one president have been ITAM grads, as well as various other politicians (many of whom had PRI or PANAL ties). It’s just the sort of place a Tenoch would go to study economía.
> 
> Why diagnostic biochemistry? Well, the movie says biology, but I don’t believe that the deep-down ruthlessly practical Julio would go for something so imprecise. I think something that allows him to help people and deal with the human body in a somewhat remote way is the best fit.


	2. Chapter 2

 

Julio gets up the next day looking like a frog, eyes puffy and shiny. He splashes cold water on his face and stumbles into the kitchen for some frozen peas or something to bring down the swelling. It’s late, but not outrageous for summer. His mom’s already at work, his sister nowhere to be seen.

 _Figure it out_.

He slumps down at the kitchen table, pushing aside a battered O chem book, glancing out the window at the laundry flapping in the breeze. One of Tenoch’s shirts has somehow got mixed in with his.

 _Figure it out_.

Julio imagines bringing the shirt to Tenoch’s house. Leo opening the front door, taking the shirt. Tenoch upstairs, with the shirt, sniffing it. His mom uses cheap detergent, habit left over from before her promotion, when things were all a little harder. Tenoch and his guayaberas, hand-wash, all of them.

Julio stands up from the table, grabs Tenoch’s shirt from the clothesline, and gets dressed. Manuela still has the car for the next two weeks, so he pulls on his sneakers and heads out the door.

_Figure it out._

 

*

 

Leo opens the door, and smiles broadly when she sees him. Julio gives her a quick hug, nuzzling his nose in her hair as he’s done since he grew tall enough at age 14.

“Tenoch knows I’m coming,” he lies quickly, before she can either tell him Tenoch isn’t here or tell Tenoch that he is. He holds up the t-shirt in lieu of explanation, then slips round her through the doorway and dashes up the stairs. He hears the music before he hits the landing. Tenoch _is_ here.

He slows his steps before coming around the final corner. Tenoch is sprawled on the sofa, eyes closed, nodding his head to the music. A fine sheen of sweat glistens on the bridge of his nose, his neck a little flushed with the upstairs heat. A bright block of sunlight falls across his calves, reflecting a little off the hair there. His feet are bare. Julio swallows.

“Oye,” he says, and stops.

Tenoch starts violently, flailing ineffectually before managing to shove himself upright and twist around to stare at Julio.

“Julio,” he says, and nothing more. They stare at each other for a long moment, Julio clutching the t-shirt in his hands, the half-starts of a dozen sentences flashing through his mind. Tenoch drops his eyes.

“You. You left your shirt,” Julio manages. “It probably got into my bag when we were packing up the tent.”

“Thanks,” Tenoch mutters. His eyes are fixed somewhere around Julio’s collarbones.

“Can I…” Julio gestures at the couch. Tenoch gives a little half-shrug, and scoots the the other end of the couch. Julio sits down. The meter between them feels like no space at all.

“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you,” Julio says. Tenoch looks pale, like the sunburn he got at Boca del cielo peeled off without leaving a trace. He’s had his hair trimmed at some point in the last week or so. He’s biting his lower lip, teeth leaving small indents that flush white and then pink when he releases it. “Did your dad take you somewhere?”

Tenoch flicks his eyes up to Julio’s for just a second, then drops back to his clavicles. “No, just been around, güey.”

“Around?”

“You know. Around.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Julio asks. He holds out the shirt. “Here, come on.”

Tenoch reaches out for it, and Julio- he’s- he- he brushes the side of his hand alongside Tenoch’s, laying the shirt across his palms more than simply passing it over. Tenoch jerks his hands back like Julio has just put a viper in his hands rather than a faded band shirt.

“What?” Julio demands. “What?”

Tenoch flicks his eyes up once more. Then down. “Ana broke up with me,” he says.

“Cecelia broke up with me, too,” Julio says.

“Two weeks in Italy and as soon as they get back they think they’re too good for us!” Tenoch sneers. “Too many pinche italianos.”

It sounds like Tenoch. Even the sneer almost looks like Tenoch, a little twitch leftwards of his upper lip, his nose scrunching up. He still won’t meet Julio’s eyes, though.

Julio scoffs and chimes in with some matching banter, and the conversation flows easily enough from there, but it never touches on their week in the car, and it never makes Tenoch lift his eyes.

 

*

 

Julio calls the evening after to invite Tenoch to one of Daniel’s parties the next day. He and Saba coordinated for the weekend- two parties, back to back. As has become the norm, Julio listens to Tenoch’s answering machine and starts rambling about plans. Today, however, Tenoch actually picks up the phone when Julio starts detailing the guest list.

“Sounds like fun,” Tenoch says, abrupt on the phone as he’s always been.

“Good to hear from you, güey,” Julio says, punching the air as silently as he can. “Will you come?”

“Yeah, sure, why not?” Tenoch replies, and Julio rushes to supply the rest of the details, grinning.

“Friday at Daniel’s and Saturday at Saba’s, starts at 9:00 both times, drinks will be there and Saba’s taking care of the rest…”

 

*

 

It’s hot and smoky at Daniel’s. There’s something with a bass line thumping through a beat-up old boom box, and Julio’s a little drunk. More than a little drunk.

He’s working on his third rum and coke, dancing a little in place and glancing through the haze at the door, waiting. His limbs feel sluggish, like the heavy air is pushing them down. Every thud of the bass shakes through his hand and sets his drink to trembling. He hasn’t drunk so much since Boca del cielo.

Another gulp, and Julio can just about push back the thought of Tenoch’s hand on his forearm, his ribs, brushing his hairline, hot and dry, and Luisa moving between them on the sand.

Daniel is across the room, near the window, flyaway hair curling around the shell of his ear and the nape of his neck. Another boy is leaning on the window frame, hand right up against the side of Daniel’s face, just barely touching. His thumb brushes against Daniel’s coppery country boy cheekbones, and Daniel’s lashes flutter a little.

The apartment door opens, and Julio leans into the little gasp of cool air drawing the sweat off the nape of his neck, pulse leaping. Tenoch hesitates briefly in the doorway, then comes in, makes a beeline for the stack of cups and attendant pile of cans of shitty beer. He’s in a white guayabera again, open down the neck.

Julio takes a step forward, hesitates, then tosses back the dregs from his cup and makes for the drinks table, checking himself on the ludicrous couch, the back of a chair, a little unsteady. The alcohol flush is making the whole room feel like a million degrees.

Tenoch looks up from pouring his beer into a cup, and like a miracle a real smile breaks out across his face, a smile like swimming races and good stories and sandy beaches. Julio feels it hauling something out of his chest, a great tangled wad of jumbled memory and bitten lips and confusion, and spits it out in a laugh, and Tenoch starts laughing with him, though he can’t possibly be drunk yet, and then the two of them are bent over, clutching the rickety table and cackling and snorting until Julio thinks his ribs might break.

They straighten up eventually, grins still tugging at the corners of their mouths, and it’s like three weeks never happened.

“Qué onda, vato?” Tenoch asks, and Julio socks him in the shoulder and shoves him towards the couch, grabbing a beer for himself. The enormous cushions suck them in like tar pits, and Tenoch is smiling as white as his guayabera, as his coral necklace, and Julio gulps at his beer and laughs like he hasn’t since a beach shack and a Corona _._ The room is spinning a bit but as long as he keeps looking at Tenoch’s face, it isn’t so bad.

He loses track of time a little. He and Tenoch talk and talk, about stories and writing and girls and the damn weather, about _nothing_ , and it feels wonderful, feels like nothing to worry about. Tenoch talks about his next-door neighbor and her cut-off shorts, about a complaint some other professor filed against Jano, a new breath-holding record at the pool. Julio admits to missing Cecelia, a little sour note, and Tenoch immediately stands up and grabs him another beer, toasting extravagantly to all the pretty girls in the room, and Julio honestly doesn’t see that many girls at all, but he downs the beer all the same and cheers along.

The room’s spinning in earnest now, so Julio lays his head down on the ridiculous puffy back of the ridiculous couch, tilting his face towards Tenoch. His mouth feels cottony-dry, and when he flicks his tongue out to moisten his lips, Tenoch’s eyes dart down, and stick. Julio watches, feeling out of his head, feeling his pulse hammering behind his ears and in his throat, out of time with the bass of the music, and for the first time in almost a month, he thinks-

He thinks of kissing Tenoch. Kissing Tenoch, and how good it was. How his lips had been soft, and his stubble raspy, and his little bursts of breath on the side of Julio’s neck warm, and his hands tight and rough and eager, and how much Julio would like to kiss him again. He thinks about the boys in the room, and Daniel’s boy with his hands, and thinks that he could kiss Tenoch again, here. It’s safe.

He reaches out with his hand, and brushes one of Tenoch’s silly loose locks of hair off his face. He pushes off the couch, goes to curve a hand around the nape of Tenoch’s neck like he did at Boca del cielo, tilts his head a little, music gone quiet, just the thump of his heartbeat in his ears.

And Tenoch reaches out too, and.

Catches Julio’s wrist. Sets Julio’s hand down on his leg. Looks at him. A tucked-in guayabera look, a mansion look, a jumping-out-of-bed look, an economía look. Looks him in the eye, and then away.

Tenoch puts down his cup, stands up, and walks out of the apartment before Julio can force a single word out of his mouth. The door clicks shut, sound lost under the thumping music. All the noise and smoke of the apartment comes rushing back in, stinging his eyes, and Julio manages one rough gasp before he’s shoving off the couch and running for the bathroom.

 

*

 

Although he hangs his head over the toilet bowl and gags a few times, Julio can’t manage to vomit. He wishes he could- he feels sloshy and ill, all the laughter from earlier soured and slopping at the sides of his stomach. Instead, he squeezes back against the yellow-tiled wall beneath the sink, wraps his arms around his knees and sets his head down on them, and tries very hard to pretend he’s a kid again, treating all the maladies to be found under a secretary’s desk.

 

*

 

The day after, head still pounding a little, neck cramped from falling asleep on the floor of Daniel’s bathroom, is when Julio finds himself sitting sober on a table at Saba’s half of the weekend party, staring at el Che’s eyebrows and wishing he were anyone else at all.

 _Infeliz_. _La neta_. Julio wishes the two things didn’t go quite so well together. His mind is click-click-clicking over image after image- a swimming pool full of leaves, Luisa resting her cheek on his head, Tenoch toasting to las mamás on the beach, Tenoch leaving Daniel’s apartment.

He’s too preoccupied to notice Daniel coming up to him, but he glances up when Daniel swings himself onto the table too, kicking his heels a little. There’s a beat of stillness, the bass from Saba’s speakers pulsing sickly through Julio’s head. Daniel take a breath, holds it a moment, and mutters, “Okay.”

“I saw you and Tenoch last night,” he says, no preamble.

A fishhook catches in Julio’s brain and belly, dragging him back behind his eyes. His whole body flashes hot, then cold, a rushing tunnel-visioning panic. He curls into himself like Daniel’d punched him.

“Ah, fuck,” Daniel says, muffled. “Fuck, sorry, güey, that was like the worst way to do that.”

“You think, pendejo?” Julio rasps, his heartbeat louder in his ears than his own voice. All he can think about was how many _people_ were at Daniel’s the night before, how many people could have _seen_ , what was he thinking, what was he _thinking?_ He’s not- he _isn’t-_

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Daniel says again. “But- you and- you and Tenoch? Is that why…?” He lets his voice trail off.

 _Is that why?_ Julio thinks. Why Tenoch hasn’t come? Why he left last night? Why they went on the damn road trip on the first place? He doesn’t want to think about it. He wants to not be so _fucking stupid_ , puta madre, what was he thinking? The panicked fog of being _seen_ , fuck, begins to recede in favor of the dull ache he’s been nursing in the pit of his stomach since last night. He gives a half shrug to Daniel. No point in lying, he guesses. And Daniel’s safe.

Daniel sighs gustily through his nose. He slides off the table, plucks Julio’s joint from his hand, and stands in front of him for a beat, arms akimbo. “Well?” he says, after a moment of silence. “Come out to the fire escape with me.”

Julio breathes in, out, then sighs and pushes off the table as well. “Fine.”

 

*

 

Outside, the air is as clear as it ever gets in the D.F., the rumble of traffic from the carretera a few blocks away a low growl that vibrates through the floor of the balcony. Julio lets his calves hang over the edge of the balcony and presses his forehead against the rusty safety bars.

Out here, the noise of the party muffled by the windowpane, a little chilly in his t-shirt, he feels a different kind of unhappy. Lonelier, a little broader, like the crush of people inside was pressing it all into the border of his skin.

Daniel sits quietly on the windowsill behind him, letting him be. Julio knows he’s waiting for something, but he doesn’t feel like breaking the silence just yet. He doesn’t know what he would even say.

 _I went on a road trip last month and fell in love_. _I went on a road trip last month and figured out I was already kind of in love_. _I went on a road trip last month and fell in love and found out I was already in love and then fucked it all up._

_I’m scared._

_I don’t think I’m gay._

_I kissed Tenoch. Tenoch kissed me back. I did more than kiss Tenoch and I liked it. I really liked it._

_I miss Luisa even though I didn’t know her. I miss Cecelia. It feels like I was in love with both of them. And Tenoch too._

_I don’t know what to do with that. I’m scared._

_I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared._

Julio squeezes the bars and presses his forehead into them so hard it feels like it might bruise. He drags in a harsh breath and holds it and holds it and holds it, because if he lets it out he might scream or cry or just dissipate into the smoggy night air, nothing holding him together.

“Hey,” Daniel says, “Charolastra,” and somehow it’s that one word that punches that breath out of him, and it’s tears after all, quiet, choked tears that don’t say the half of what’s swirling around in his gut.

“Charolastra,” Daniel says again, “You’re okay.” He steps off the windowsill and sits down next to Julio, and lays one hand on his shoulder. “You’re gonna be okay,” he says, and stays there, breathing softly, and Julio lets the warmth of his hand bleed through his sleeve while he cries quietly into the orange nighttime dimness.

 

*

 

They walk home that night together, just as they had from Tenoch’s hardly more than two months ago. Julio watches his feet and can’t dredge up even a smidgeon of Daniel’s savage smile. No swinging on lampposts for him. He’s done crying, for now, at least, but he just feels empty.

Daniel is quiet, as he has been since making their excuses to Saba and walking Julio carefully out the door. Julio’s glad for it, but he can’t shake the awkward knowledge that he owes him some kind of explanation for everything.

He’s just trying to cobble together some words in his head, for himself as much as for Daniel, when Daniel says, “So. When you told me you were busy, you meant Tenoch. And when you said road trip, you meant…”

“Road trip,” Julio says. “I meant road trip. It was just. Other things too.” He keeps his eyes on the sidewalk, counting cracks.

“Tenoch and I fucked,” he blurts out, words suddenly quivering on his tongue. “At the beach, with Luisa. And it was good, fuck, it was so good, and we fell asleep together and in the morning he ran out and threw up and we didn’t say a damn word about it on the drive back or once we got here, and then I tried to kiss him again and then he left again and I’ve fucked it all up being some puto marica-”

“All right now,” Daniel says mildly, and Julio snaps his mouth shut, words gone as suddenly as they arrived. “All right now,” Daniel says again. “First off, just remember who you’re talking to here, güey. Charolastra I might be but whipping post I’m not, and you don’t get to talk like that around me.”

“I’m s-” Julio attempts, but Daniel cuts him off.

“Shh,” he says. “Now, look. I figure you’re my friend and that entitles you to some advice, but I figure I’m your friend too, and that entitles me to a better explanation and some respect, while you’re at it. I also figure you need help, and I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.” He stops in one of the apricot pools of streetlamp light and catches Julio by the sleeve.

Julio lets himself be pulled to a halt, but keeps staring fixedly at his feet. The dullness has been augmented by a hot flush of embarrassment and a certain amount of resentment, and he just doesn’t want to look at Daniel. He doesn’t want to go over the whole sordid thing again.

“Start with Luisa,” Daniel orders. “Who’s she?”

Julio clenches his jaw. “She’s Tenoch’s cousin’s wife,” he grits out. “She. We took her on the trip.”

“She went with you?” Daniel asks.

“Yes! Is that so hard to believe?” Julio snaps. The resentment has overtaken the embarrassment and is making inroads on the dullness, and it feels _good_ to be angry. It feels good to yell and spit out some of the vitriol that’s been simmering under the surface the last few weeks.

“Honestly, yes,” Daniel says, unperturbed. “You slept with her?”

“Yes.”

“With Tenoch?”

“She fucked Tenoch too.”

“Well, that’s interesting, but not what I was asking,” Daniel says. Julio looks up for the first time since this awful conversation stumbled its way into being, and half snarls at Daniel’s calm expression.

“Fucking _yes_ , with Tenoch,” he spits, wanting more than anything to get the _fuck_ off this street, away from Daniel, out of this damn inquisition.

Daniel shoves his hands in his pockets and starts walking again. Julio is caught flat-footed for a moment, then growls and starts after him.

“So you and Luisa fucked, and Luisa and Tenoch fucked, and then all three of you fucked,” Daniel says. “Except you say you and Tenoch fucked too, and then it all ends up with no Luisa-the-cousin’s-wife and Tenoch walking out of a party after you try to kiss him.”

The glibness of Daniel’s summary scrapes at Julio’s nerves, something ugly twisting in his throat.

“You don’t know a damn thing about it,” he hisses. “Fuck you, what do you know? Why can’t you just leave it the fuck alone?”

Daniel stops again, and turns to face Julio directly for the first time since this entire shitshow of a talk began.

“Listen up, cabrón,” he says, his voice getting louder with every word. “I might not know what exactly went down, and I might not know exactly what you think about it, but the way I see it? You had some fucking repressed shit that came up in the worst way possible, and you sure didn’t handle it too well. I get it, I _fucking get it_ , okay, it’s _hard_ , but you definitely cheated on your girlfriend with both somebody’s wife and our best friend, who clearly also has some repressed shit to handle badly, and the end result is you, single, yelling at me on the street at two in the morning because neither you nor Tenoch can fucking cope with the idea that you might be queerer than you thought.” Daniel pauses, breathing hard. Julio feels rage roiling in his belly, but before he can retort, Daniel keeps going.

“And I’ve been pretty damn good about your crisis, here, I think, _especially_ since I hadn’t seen you for a goddamn _month_ before you show up at my door looking for someone non-judgemental to get you through Tenoch withdrawal, but that’s _not_ actually my job, and it’s _not_ actually okay for you to treat me like shit because you can’t handle yourself.” Daniel stops again, and grinds the palms of his hands against his eyes. Julio stands there, and although the anger is still burning bitterly through him, he can’t find a thing to say. He doesn’t think he has a response.

“Look, Julio,” Daniel says, and he’s not yelling anymore. He just sounds tired, hand still at his temples. “Look. I’m the last person who’d tell you to- to say anything when you’re not ready, or push something on you, or whatever. But. From where I’m standing, you’re at a pretty fucking low point and you need to fix yourself up.” He looks up, looks Julio right in the eyes.

“It’s not. Fun,” he says. “It’s not fun to know something about yourself that the world hates. But it’s less fun to hate yourself for it. And hating yourself for something you deny is even _happening_ is even worse than that. And hurting people around you because of all that shit is worst of all. So you need to take a good long look at yourself and figure out what you want and who you want and what that’s gonna mean to you, because right now you’re hurting, and you’re hurting other people too.”

The silence of the street spools out between them. Daniel pants a little. Julio just stands there, stock still. His hands are clenched into fists. And the silence stretches.

After a long, long minute, Daniel sighs. “Things are changing. It’s not the end of the world. Just- you’ve got to be brave.”

He turns, starts walking towards the corner. “I’m going home,” he calls back. “Come by when you want, güey, we can talk. Do some thinking,” and then he’s around the corner and gone.

Julio keeps standing in his patch of streetlamp light, speechless. Eventually, the chill forces him to start walking home again, one stomping stride at a time. Through a monumental effort of will, he closes the door without slamming it, creeps past his mom’s room and Manuela’s, shucks off his jeans in short, jerky motions, and gets into bed.

He lies there and seethes for a very long time.

 

*

 

The anger is still buzzing in Julio’s teeth and fingernails when he wakes up the next morning. He brushes his teeth hard enough that he spits pink foam and shuts the bathroom door just about hard enough to count as a slam. When he stomps into the kitchen, Manuela is reading _La Jornada,_ feet propped on the table _._ She raises a sardonic eyebrow at him.

“Good morning, then,” she says through a half-smile. Julio clenches his jaw and manages a marginally civil response, digging through the cupboards for bread.

When he thunks his plate of toast down on the table, Manuela buried in the paper once more, the sight of his two letters from UNAM and Ibero drives drives another spike of ire through him. Tenoch and his _shit_ have distracted him from the fact that summer’s almost over and he has to give an answer to _someone_. He stares down at the neat copperplate type handing him everything he’s worked for since preparatoria, a chance to crawl out from under his mother’s desk and touch all the things that make up a body. He just feels blank frustration.

He thinks about cells, and ecosystems, and all the bits of living knowledge he’d sucked up like a sponge. He thinks about the parts of a body: organ systems and the dark curve of hair on Cecelia’s neck, veins and Luisa’s small, perfect breasts, protein chains and Tenoch’s warm breath on his ear. He thinks that Tenoch had always been the smart one, the one that people expected to do something, whether that was writing or economía. He thinks that he can describe an ATP reaction like Tenoch can describe the breathless roar of a crowd. He thinks that Tenoch is terrible at standing up to his father. He thinks that he got into Ibero and UNAM on his own merits, no name behind him. He thinks that Tenoch walked away and slammed a door that’d been creaking shut since he woke up with Julio’s head pillowed on his arm and leapt away like he’d been burnt. If Tenoch chooses economía, he’ll go to ITAM, no question.

“Manuela,” he says, and the blankness of his irritation is slowly sharpening, coming to a point. Manuela folds her paper down with a rustle and cocks an eyebrow at him. “How did you choose UNAM?” he asks.

She bites her lip a little and hums. “Part of it was that it was cheap,” she says. “A big part, actually. But I might have gone to UACM for even less, or somewhere else.” She half-smiles again, a sharp little thing. “The other part, though? I knew what I wanted to study, I knew what I was good at, and when I visited I saw that they could make me _better_. I knew if I went that I could learn to be one of the _best_.” She shrugs, her half smile growing into the grin Julio sometimes sees when she drags him along to her protests. “And you know? I made the right choice.”

It’s Julio’s turn to worry at his lower lip. He looks again at the letters, slightly crummy now from the bread he’s been turning over in his fingers.

“Hey,” Manuela says. She’s put down the paper entirely, and her smile is softer now. Fewer teeth. “I knew what I wanted, and I knew how I thought I was going to get it. And it worked out for me; it worked out really well. I love what I do, and school made me better at it.” Her smile turns a little sad, but she keeps talking. “I know you don’t think much of what I do, my noble goals. I can’t say I understand it, but you’re smart anyway. You don’t have to follow just what I did, although you know it’s important and we need everything we can get. Things are changing.”

 _Things are changing_ , Daniel echoes from the back of Julio’s brain.

Manuela keeps talking. “My real advice is that you’ll get better at what you love no matter where you go. So go somewhere where things are new, so you can change along with them.”

Julio looks back down at his toast, at his two letters. The quiet drags on for a beat, and then Manuela chuckles a little.

“Sorry for the speechmaking,” she says. “You get in the habit and can’t really get out. Did I help, though?”

Julio thinks again of the softness of Tenoch’s skin. He thinks of _pinche economía_. He thinks of Daniel in two different pools of streetlamp light and transport molecules. He thinks of being wanted, of being in place. Of not wearing his father’s ill-fitting suit to parties with more bodyguards than guests.

He picks up the letter from UNAM.

“You did,” he replies. _Things have already changed_ , he thinks, and this time the surge of anger makes him reach for a pen.

 

*

 

As soon as Julio licks his acceptance envelope closed, the day skips and stutters into freeze-frames of activity. Finding mamá, telling her, feeling her cool dry hands cupping his cheeks, finding the checkbook, writing the check, not looking at the number, swallowing down guilt, checking and double checking the envelope, feeling cheeks and nose twitch with sudden stifled excitement, kissing mamá again, out the door. It’s as though the decision, any decision, has kicked the summer into a new gear, slipping away out the window- _it’s done, I’ve done it, this is happening_.

The patchy cover on the steering wheel comes into focus slowly as Julio pulls onto the carretera, heading for UNAM. He has his windows down and no music on the radio, sun pouring a tired sort of mustard yellow onto the velour of the seats. It’s not quite past two on a Sunday and the highway is as empty as a thoroughfare in the D.F. ever gets.

Julio glances at the sealed envelope on the passenger seat and something in the thick creamy card stock kicks a wave of panic through his chest. The business and bustle of the morning had quieted the anger somewhat, muffled it a bit in pride and excitement, but it comes rising up in the back of his throat again, half-buried in an odd, buzzing desperation. _What is he doing?_ That’s the rest of his life on fancy paper sitting incongruously in his beat-up old Toyota- Julio Zapata Ortiz, student of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, studying bioquímica diagnóstica.

He grips the steering wheel harder. _What the fuck, what the fuck is he doing?_ He’d hardly given this a moment’s thought, just ridden a surge of emotion to a choice. He doesn’t know anyone at UNAM- just his sister’s friends, and they hardly count. He’s going to be alone there. And carajo, diagnostic biochem, what is he thinking? He’s not the smart one, that’s Tenoch, that’s always been Tenoch the writer, Tenoch with the tutors and all the perfect words.

Julio feels stupid and dramatic but he pulls off the freeway anyway, parks in front of a closed panadería. There’s a graffiti tree on the metal window guard and a neon sign blinking unevenly. _Shut up_ , he tells himself. _Just shut the fuck up, cabrón_. The envelope is uncomfortably bright in his peripheral vision. _Tranquilízate._

Instead of glaring at it, Julio looks at his hands on the steering wheel, at his long fingers and oddly square palms, so unlike his his mother’s tiny, delicate hands. Genetics, he thinks. He knows genetics. People are confusing, but all the delicate machinery of their being is easy. The hows and whys of proteins folding and feedback loops and cell generation, all the tiny, vital processes that explain human beings, he does know that. Antibodies and immune responses have always made sense to him, more sense than parents and teachers and girls ( _and boys, and boys and no)._ Tenoch was the smart one, but Julio had always helped _him_ with his bio and chem homework. Julio had never had a tutor or bought extra study sessions, just bought his books secondhand and learned from foxed pages where jam stains covered the diagrams.

“And I _got_ it,” Julio says aloud, to the letter, maybe. It doesn’t respond.

 _I knew that they could make me better_ , says Manuela in his head. Things are changing, things have already changed. _I could get better_ , Julio thinks. _I could be the smart one. There could be more to me than- than what Cecelia said. Sex, swearing, drunk._

“And I could do it by my own damn self,” he half-yells, suddenly angry all over again at Tenoch, who left, who’s going to fall back on the promise of his old tutors and older money, who’s too scared to try something new, to maybe- to maybe help Julio _understand_. Because he doesn’t, he doesn’t understand any of this. His nose prickles with tears, and he thinks it again: _I don’t fucking understand_. But things are changing, things have already changed, and Julio at least knows he can’t stick his head in the sand or run away- that’s not a luxury people like him get, not when the world isn’t cushioned over with bank notes. And if viruses and cells are the only things that aren’t changing on him now, he’s going to hang on to them. And he’ll do it himself.

 _And maybe_ , comes a little voice from the back of his head as he restarts the engine, _maybe if you study hard enough you can understand. Maybe get good enough you’ll be. Good enough._

Julio spends the rest of the drive carefully thinking of other things, but in the quiet spaces between crevices of his brain, he bounces back and forth between _I could understand_ and _I could be good enough_. The envelope has stopped glaring ominously from the passenger seat. He’s got this. He doesn’t run away from his problems.

When he reaches the administrative offices, he strides in with purpose, acceptance in hand.

“Julio Zapata,” he tells the secretary. “I’m here to confirm my place with the Facultad de Ciencias.”

 

*

 

When Julio crawls into bed that night, after a gasping-tight hug from his mother and a smile from Manuela that’s honestly the most approving look she’s directed at him in at least three years, he’s out the moment his head touches the pillow, sleeping the sleep of the self-righteous decision-maker.

When he wakes up not two hours later, achingly hard and still half-dreaming of Tenoch’s dark eyes and slick-shiny lips, the urge to burst into tears is almost as strong as the urge to stick his hand down his boxers and bring himself off. He settles for listing the steps of gene transcription until he can slip into an uneasy doze again.

It’s just too bad he doesn’t know if there’s a trick somewhere in the nucleotide bases there to make him stop _feeling_ this way.

 

*

 

Predictably, Julio feels like shit again the next morning, a ticker-tape scroll of _what did I do, why did I do that_ marching through his head. He’s full of the frustrating, itchy buzz he’d normally have dealt with by finagling time alone with Cecelia or (and here the parade of _you motherfucking idiot_ really starts banging its drums) jerking off with Tenoch under whatever pretense seemed most likely that day.

He groans and throws an arm up to shield his eyes from the shaft of dusty light cutting through the curtains. The apartment is quiet, his mother having left for work and Manuela probably out plotting. Just the ticking grind off the refrigerator from the kitchen and the traffic grousing by outside to break the silence. Judging by the light, it’s going to be one of those weirdly perfect late-August days that come by the city once in a blue moon, when the heat isn’t suffocating and the dust isn’t choking, and he and Tenoch would spend all day at the pool, racing and holding their breath. Everything feels very empty.

Julio lets his arm flop off his face. He lies still for a moment, then grudgingly pushes himself up, crossing his legs. His hands rest, palms up, on the navy blue sheets on his ankles.

 _I’m going to UNAM_ , he thinks. The little marching band of panic strikes up yet again, but it fades after a moment. Spur-of-the-moment his decision had been, but- it’s not bad. It’s good, actually, it’s great. What else has he been working for since he was old enough to look at his mother’s desk as more than a playground and think _not me_? He’s going to UNAM, and he’s going because he, in defiance of all apparent odds, got something right.

The right thing for the wrong reason isn’t so bad. He hasn’t- well. He hasn’t been doing much of the right thing for any reason lately, it seems. A little change of pace is good.

 _Things are changing_ , he thinks, and swallows past the lump in his throat. _Things have already changed._

It’s been three days since he kissed Tenoch. Three days since Tenoch looked at him and left. And how long before that had it been going sour? Since Tenoch had looked at him that first time, the morning on the beach, and left too. Since screaming at each other in the car, making Tenoch get down on his knees on the hot asphalt in nowhere, Chiapas. Since- well, if Julio is truly, brutally honest with himself, since he’d gotten plastered months and months ago, looked at Ana, and decided to push her up against a wall and slide inside her, since he’d come thinking of Tenoch gasping into Ana’s neck just like him.

 _¡Qué manifiesto ni qué Charolastras de mierda!_ Luisa shouts in his head. _Hurting people around you_ , echoes Daniel. Julio watches his hands clench on top of the sheets. The emptiness of the apartment feels like it’s listening to every stupid memory that flashes through his head.

 _I fucked up_ , he thinks. _I really, really fucked up, I did all that all wrong. That-_ and his brain putters out then, train of thought unwilling to make the stop at what “that” might be.

He goes back to thinking about the fight in the car, and maybe he can’t think it in as many words, but in his memory Luisa has no such compunction, grabbing her bag and storming away, yelling, _la única cosa que les gustaría sea follar el uno con el otro,_ and right behind her again comes Daniel, _neither you nor Tenoch can fucking cope with the idea that you might be queerer than you thought._

Julio _curls_ around his hands, curls up like he’s been punched in the stomach. His brain’s changed its mind, it seems, now all it can _do_ is think. He thinks that he loved kissing Tenoch, that he loved clutching at him and biting at his skin, that he broke up with Cecelia in a _bathroom_ and he deserved it, joder, that Luisa was the most beautiful woman in the entire world for a week on the highway, that he’d never, ever have gone along with some of the shit Tenoch - _rich-kid friend_ , sneers Cecelia- pulled if he hadn’t—  

If he hadn’t wanted him. If he hadn’t been in love with him. If he didn’t, in general, fall in love with boys sometimes.

“Fuck,” Julio whispers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re: names that I made up: The characters in YTMT all bear the surnames of important figures in the Mexican Revolution, although we’re only ever given their primeros apellidos, or patronymics. Full names (patronymic and matronymic) are used on official and formal documents, including, I assume, college acceptance letters. I believe Julio’s mamá is tough, fair, and definitely the best parent any of the characters have, and she deserved an awesome last name, so I kept with the trend and sought out a heroine of the Mexican War of Independence (NOT the Mexican Revolution- that’s the primer apellido’s schtick). Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez or La Corregidora was a criolla insurgent and conspirator in the Mexican Revolution, and a fervent republican her whole life. She helped plot the initial revolution in her own home, and when the conspirators were betrayed, it was her warning that allowed Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla to issue the Grito de Dolores. She remained a radical political activist post-war, turning down honors and positions in favor of staunch republicanism- beginning with direct defiance of Agustín de Iturbide, self-styled Emperor of Mexico. Iturbide, of course, is Tenoch’s primer apellido. 


	3. Chapter 3

 

Life does go on regardless of staggering personal epiphanies, so when the phone rings into the silent apartment, whose silence now feels less listening and more like a safe, empty space that Julio never ever wants to leave, Julio forces himself out of bed to get it. It’s Daniel on the line.

“Buenos, güey, what’s up?” Daniel sounds a little forcedly cheery. Julio recalls that their last interaction (all memory-based revelations aside) had ended with Daniel yelling at him on a public street at three in the morning. Julio is in the middle of an identity crisis and really doesn’t have time for this.

“Chido,” he mutters, then a little louder, “Fine, fine, everything’s good. What’s up?”

“You sound a little… off,” says Daniel.

“I’m fine,” he says again, impatient. “I’ve just been. Thinking.”

He can more or less hear Daniel’s quirked eyebrow through the wires. “Thinking.”

“Yes.”

“All right then. That’s… good.” Daniel sounds a bit thrown. “Este, Saba and la Pecas and a couple of her friends and I were thinking of getting high and then going out for ice cream or something. It’s Monday and we’re all bored as shit. Do you- want to come?” His voice trails off at the end of the sentence, like he’s not sure Julio _would_ like to come, or like he’s not sure he should be offering.

Julio’s not sure either. For a moment, he really considers saying no -he doesn’t want to deal with _anyone_ today- but then he thinks about spending all day brooding into the empty apartment and decides that Saba’s good shit and a paleta sound like a much better idea. God, getting high sounds like a blessing.

“Sure,” he tells Daniel, already looking around for a pair of clean socks somewhere. “What, now?”

“Yeah, whenever you’re ready. Just come to Saba’s and we’ll hop down to La Michoacana once we’re done,” Daniel says. He still sounds a little hesitant. “Look- it’s just us, Tenoch won’t-”

“ _Fine_ ,” Julio interrupts, “I’ll see you at Saba’s place, órale pues,” and shoves the phone back into the cradle with a good deal more force than necessary. He can’t deny the wriggle of relief worming its way down his spine as he yanks on his jeans, but he can sure as hell ignore it.

 

*

 

Saba’s apartment looks the same as it ever has, and Julio finds himself feeling mildly resentful that the rest of the world hasn’t flipped itself inside out to match his restless thoughts. But no- the cramped apartment smells as earthy-thick with weed and cooking smells and musty blankets as ever, the same worn-out posters plastered thickly on the walls, corners foxed and curling, light from the incongruously tall windows highlighting the curlicues of smoke and dust swirling about the room.

Saba greets him expansively from his lounge on the bed in the corner, clearly already stoned, arm around la Pecas, who’s half-tucked under a battered fleece blanket despite the close heat of the room. If he’s noticed Julio’s strange behavior over the last few months, the fact that he and Julio have hardly spoken since the trip, it’s a revelation that will have to wait for either more or less weed. It’s relaxing, in its way. There’s never any need to worry that Saba will be too sharp for his own good. Instead, he just waves Julio over to the bed, presses a joint and lighter into his hand, and flops back down onto his pillow nest, blue-grey streams of smoke curling out of his mouth like extravagant mustaches.

Julio takes the joint with a relief approaching desperation, and settles down onto the floor, leaning back against the bed. His first drag of smoke doesn’t do much for him, but by the second and third the tightly wound coil of panic he’s been swallowing down subsides. It’s not gone completely -Julio can feel it hovering just behind his sternum, waiting to spring back out- but for the time being it’s lessened. He lets his head thunk back onto the mattress, staring idly at the ceiling.

La Pecas says something dreamy about the song on the radio, and the three of them fall into a meandering half-conversation, interrupted only by occasional drags and exhales.

 _This is normal_ , Julio thinks, _I can still have normal,_ and drifts.

The gentle conversation lasts an indeterminate amount of time, until the door clicks open again and Daniel pokes his head past the doorframe.

“Hi,” he says quietly, apparently unwilling to break the hush. “I brought Andrés and Azucena with me, is there enough?”

“Claro,” murmurs la Pecas, and Daniel opens the door all the way to let in a short, chubby girl with dark hair sweeping into a bun from a hard part like a painting of an adelita, closely followed by a pale boy with broad shoulders whom Julio recognizes with a start as the boy Daniel had been with the night he tried to kiss Tenoch.

Saba makes a vague noise of acknowledgment and beckons them over, handing over the weed with all the solemnity of a priest conducting a ritual. Julio watches Daniel and the other boy -Andrés- with all the sly sharpness he can muster past the laziness of the smoke. Even to someone looking closely (and Julio is very much looking closely), the two of them aren’t at all overt in. Whatever it is. Julio realizes he doesn’t even know if they’re dating, or what. If it was just something for the party. But he can’t stop watching,

If they could just touch, then Julio could _see_.

There’s something, maybe, a little brush of the fingers as Andrés passes Daniel the joint Saba hands him, a little touch that strokes a little too much, though it doesn’t linger. Nobody else in the room thought a thing of it, he can tell. Julio thinks of laying a shirt over Tenoch’s hands, the kind of skin hunger that made a scrap of cotton into an opportunity, not that he knew it then.

The weed doesn’t fully manage to blunt the bitterness that washes through him, or the heavy sort of acceptance. What a fucking idiot he’d been.

He’s knocked out of his daze by Azucena settling down beside him on the floor. She smells, appropriately, of lilies, though that’s quickly drowned out by the smoke from the joint. She offers him a drag, which he takes, eager to tamp down the swelling panic once more.

He lets his breath out very slowly, waiting until his ribs start spasming with the need for more air, and focuses on the dust motes moving in and out of the planes of afternoon sunlight as they glide across the floor. Little swirling galaxies, new nebulas every time one of them exhales a mouthful of smoke.

Across the room, on casually different sides of the kitchen table, Andrés and Daniel blow smoke at each other, streams twining together like fingers.

 

*

 

Julio loses track of time, but the motes of dust are taking on a golden sort of tinge by the time la Pecas stirs and says, “Ice cream?”

The other five of them make vague noises of agreement, Daniel mumbling, “ _Lucuma_ ,” and pushing all ungainly to their feet, looking around for shoes. Azucena unpins her bun and begins to braid her hair, and Julio smells lilies again.

They’re none of them very high anymore, but the hours of calm silence and the honey-gold late afternoon light make it easy to smile quietly and laugh about nothing much as they troop down Saba’s stairs and up the block to the nevería.

Daniel orders for Andrés, supposedly because Andrés doesn’t have any bills small enough, but he doesn’t even have to ask what Andrés would like. And when he hands over the sugar cone of menta, there’s that brief, brushing touch again, and Andrés’ smile is crooked, like one corner of his mouth can be private. Again, Julio is sure that nobody would notice if they weren’t looking. He’s looking, though, and the little crook of Andrés’ lips settles him down, finishes the job the weed and sunshine and easy silence had started. It’s a nice smile. The little spring of panic recedes back into his chest.

Julio buys a paleta de chongos and wolfs it down, then buys another and eats it more leisurely, curd by curd the way Manuela used to tease him for, too slowly to avoid sticky, cinnamony drips from rolling down his fingers.

La Michoacana has booths, American-style ruby vinyl, and Julio somehow ends up squished tightly between Azucena and Daniel, facing the swinging door. They feel warm against his arms. They all steal bites of each other’s ice cream, sips of Saba’s milkshake. Conversation starts up again, less desultory than in the apartment, light and fun and about nothing in particular.

Julio gives himself just one second to close his eyes and feel all right. Nothing can take away this, the buzzing contentment of touching friends and talking nonsense and eating sweet things on a weekday afternoon like children.

Just then, of course, the tin bell with the broken clapper over the door clinks. La Pecas raises an arm and waves cheerfully, shouting, “Here you are!” and Julio sees with an awful sense of inevitability that it is, of course, Tenoch.

La Pecas keeps talking, saying, “I called you ages ago, what took you so long?” but Tenoch is looking right at Julio, right at him, and Julio’s heart is fit to beat right out of his chest, and his whole body has gone tense and he _knows_ Daniel and Azucena can feel it, and Tenoch is making that stupid fucking _face_ he makes when he’s off guard, gaping like a fish.

Daniel stiffens next to Julio, and Andrés, who was there the night of the party, who _saw_ , puta de mierda, twists around, sees Tenoch, and immediately squeezes out of the booth to come stand behind Daniel, propping his forearms on the seatback. Julio doesn’t know what his face is doing, but he's sure it can’t be pretty, because la Pecas and Saba are giving him the strangest looks, and probably Azucena too, though he can’t see her face.

It’s one of those terrible moments that feels like it lasts forever and definitely lasts too long to be normal regardless of its actual duration. Saba opens his mouth and Julio can just _see_ the question coming, and he has no idea what he’s going to say in response, none at all.

Daniel, though, god bless him, has kept his wits about him.

“Tenoch!” he says, “It’s been ages, cabrón!” His voice is just a little too sharp on the _cabrón_ to be casual, and Julio realizes that Daniel probably has his own bone to pick with Tenoch, the same bone he picked with Julio all those weeks ago when he showed up looking for Tenoch. Brief appearance at the disastrous party aside, Tenoch hasn’t seen Daniel since graduation.

Regardless of the obvious edge to Daniel’s exclamation, it seems to unfreeze their ridiculous little tableau. Saba laughs nervously; la Pecas seems willing to chalk up the awkwardness to Daniel being pissed at Tenoch. Tenoch takes a step forward, but Daniel waves him away, says, “Go order, we can catch up once you’ve got whatever.” His smile’s got a mean glint to it, and Julio adds a distinct sinking feeling to the acrobatics gym of emotion in his stomach.

While he and Tenoch and Saba are certainly capable of causing damage in a careless, blunt-edged, teenaged sort of way, Daniel has always been the only one with a real cruel streak, something he’s always been happy to employ when he feels slighted. Julio wishes he was anywhere in the entire world other than trapped between Daniel and a complete stranger with Tenoch coming at them.

In the shuffle to cram Tenoch into the overstuffed booth, la Pecas ends up on Saba’s lap, Tenoch scoots in to sit beside them, and Andrés apparently picks up on Daniel’s mood and sits back down, trapping Tenoch right across from Julio. Their knees bump, but there’s nowhere else to put their legs. Julio can feel the heat of Tenoch’s skin right through his jeans.

 _If this is for me at all, I don't want it!_ Julio thinks desperately, staring hard at the peach-colored wall beside Tenoch’s ear.

There’s a beat of silence. Julio fiddles with the stick of his paleta instead of looking at Tenoch.

In the end, it’s Azucena who speaks up.

“Hi,” she says. “I’m Azucena.” She sticks her hand across the table for Tenoch to shake. Tenoch looks at it for a moment like he’s not sure what to do with it, reaches over to shake it twice, some half-formed expression swimming around his face before settling on a grin.

“Azucena,” he repeats, grin morphing towards a leer. “Are you with Daniel?”

“I’m one of Daniel’s friends, yes,” Azucena replies, taking back her hand. Julio’s staring too hard at the formica tabletop to steal a glance at her face, but her tone is arch. “I think Andrés is the only one here who’s, hm, _with Daniel_.”

Tenoch looks severely discomfited. “Aha, yes, that’s, yes. Gusto, Andrés. Daniel, güey, you didn’t tell me you were, este…”

Andrés nods pleasantly enough to him, but Daniel clearly smells blood. “Seeing someone?” he suggests, smiling. “Yes, well, you haven’t been around much! Julio said something about a road trip?”

“Actually, that was a couple of months ago,” Tenoch says, sounding uncomfortable.

“That’s right,” Daniel says, “I remember, you and Julio went together. But he hasn’t said much about it- what did you do? Did you have fun?”  

Julio’s torn between the desire to twist around and punch Daniel directly in the teeth and spontaneously teleport to Mars. He sneaks a glance at Tenoch’s face only to catch Tenoch doing the same; their eyes catch for a moment before they both jerk their heads away.

“Yeah,” Tenoch says haltingly. “We just went to the beach, man, down in Chiapas. Nothing much happened. Some pigs fucked up the campsite and we had to go early.”

Saba stirs a little, looking surprised, and Julio wonders what Tenoch told him, but Saba’s not exactly the master of subtlety, he can’t know-

“Qué mal pedo,” Daniel says, still smiling perfectly pleasantly. “Not much to keep you busy after, I guess, if nothing, well, exciting happened.”  He lets the end of the statement hang like a question.

“No, nothing much,” Tenoch says, shifting in his seat. His knees bump up against Julio’s, and Julio just wants to _get the fuck out of here_ , for Daniel to _shut the fuck up and leave it be,_ but Daniel keeps going.

“What’s been keeping you busy, then?” Daniel asks, but doesn’t let Tenoch answer. “I heard Ana broke up with you; that’s really too bad,” he continues instead, and Julio just wants to sink through the floor. “Have you found a new girlfriend yet?” He pauses, then adds, “Or…” and flicks his eyes to Andrés, just long enough to be noticeable, and lets the end of that question hang.

Tenoch glances at Andrés, too, opens his mouth a couple times and actually _blushes_ , _godfuckingdammit_ , before chuckling uncomfortably and saying, “Aha, yeah, actually, I’ve been seeing my neighbor, Juliana; you should see her-”

“Yes?” interjects Azucena.

“You should see her, eh, sometime- yeah, sometime,” Tenoch stumbles, and Julio feels Azucena lean back next to him, crossing her arms. Julio tries to sink down farther into the booth, and in the process manages to press his leg right against Tenoch’s. They both jump like they’ve been shocked, and Saba gives them a truly impressive _what the fuck?_ look.

Daniel’s not fucking done, though, never knows when it’s enough, and says, “I guess she must have been taking up a lot of your time, then; I’ve only seen you once all summer.” He reaches across the table to lightly touch Andrés’ hand, the first real coupley touch they’ve shared since they got here ( _for your fucking head game?_ thinks Julio, feeling sickly furious and humiliated) and tilts his head at Tenoch.

“It’s not because of me, is it?” he asks guilelessly, because he’s got the fucking cruel streak but he’s not very damn subtle about it.

“No!” Tenoch exclaims, hands out, fucking _looking_ at Julio, just for a second but Julio’s sure people _saw_ , in front of people who are practically _strangers_ , he felt Azucena look between them, _fuck you, Daniel, you fucking asshole,_ but Daniel’s still not _fucking done_ , saying-

“So then why’d you-”

And Julio is about to either scream or start crying, but Andrés, out of the blue, says quietly,

“All right.”

Daniel stops like Andrés has laid a hand over his mouth. There’s a beat of slowed-down silence, another of those too-long moments, and Julio can see Tenoch getting ready to open his mouth again, Daniel considering whether to go back on the attack, Saba looking flabbergasted and la Pecas looking shrewd, and he can’t take another fucking _second_ of this.

“I have to go,” he announces loudly, shoving at Daniel’s shoulder. “I need to get the car back to my sister.”

Daniel frowns. “I thought you-”

“I should go too; it’s my turn to make dinner,” interrupts Azucena, sliding out of the booth. Julio doesn’t waste a second shoving himself out after her, miming patting down his pockets for the keys to the car he didn’t bring. He shoves his left fist in his pocket and makes for the door, tossing a wave back over his shoulder. He doesn’t want them to see his face.

He does glance back through the window once he’s out the door. Tenoch is on his feet, half turned towards the door, Saba’s hand on his forearm. Daniel and Andrés have left the booth altogether, standing next to Azucena in a loose arc, the table between them and Tenoch. Nobody’s talking, and it’s the soundless image of that tableau that follows Julio all the way home. The space between them and the silence.

 

*

 

Julio is hot and exhausted by the time he reaches home. The last couple times Julio stormed out of a place -what a fucking awful habit to be getting into, he thinks- it had been nighttime. Quite by chance, of course, but dramatic departures into the night have advantages. Besides being suitably serious-looking, there generally aren’t other pedestrians to look askance at a teenager alternately stomping, sniffling, and snarling his way down a sidewalk or to impede said storming when it’s past midnight. Perhaps even more mundane but pertinent is the fact that storming is a cool-weather activity, a state the D.F. just about achieves in the wee hours but certainly not at four in the afternoon. Thus, Julio manages to storm about two blocks from La Michoacana before the sun in his eyes, the sweat running down his back, and the raised eyebrows of his fellow passersby drag him down to a miserable trudge.

He’s shucking off his t-shirt before he even gets to the bathroom, feeling feverish and sticky. The water’s on, thank god, and he fiddles the dial to lukewarm and lets the lackluster spray run down his nose and neck. He just stands there, hands braced on the tiles.

Although the walk sweated out the sickening humiliation of the ice cream shop, the last bits of afternoon contentment have been irrevocably soured, and the half-excited nerves and shock of the morning aren’t coming back. Water clumps his eyelashes together and Julio stares at the drain and presses and picks at the bruising lump in his stomach.

 

*

 

Waking up the next morning to clear light and an empty apartment feels like mockery. _Do over!_ it shouts, _Time to think about universities and Tenoch and what a miserable fuck-up you are all over again!_

Julio sits up, crosses his legs, puts his hands on his ankles just like yesterday, feeling performative and bitter enough to keep on with it. He’d skipped dinner yesterday, though, in the interests of avoiding any kind of interaction with Manuela and his mother, and he decides to go brood over toast, at least.

When the phone rings this time he pointedly ignores it. It might not be Daniel, but it probably is, and Julio _will not_ deal with him today. The call rings through to the answering machine but nobody leaves a message. Julio figures the situation calls for a mulish sort of smirk, so he directs one at the phone. It doesn’t help much.

He eats his toast. He washes his plate and puts it in the dish rack. He sits down at the table and pulls over the beat-up O-chem book that’s been sitting next to the napkins since graduation. He finds some practice problems and starts balancing equations. It’s good, right? Look at him studying for uni. Fresas like Tenoch never study from jam-stained books with ripped-up covers; they don’t even have to work to get into their ITAMs and Tecs.

Julio realizes he’s grinding his teeth and just transferring a couple of oxygen molecules back and forth across the equals sign. He realizes he’s thinking about universities and Tenoch and what a miserable fuck-up he is.

“Fuck this shit.”

He snaps the chem book closed and stalks back to his room. He sits on his bed and contemplates his hands again until murderous boredom forces him back out to the kitchen, where he stares at the phone until frustration and a lump in his throat sends him back to the bedroom.

The next hour continues more or less in the same vein. At noonish he makes himself more toast and chews it mechanically, not really tasting it. The problem- well, the problem is a lot of things. The problem, Julio supposes, is that he had admitted to- fuck it, to liking boys and Tenoch in particular and then was thoroughly, if indirectly, humiliated for it just hours later. He drops his last piece of toast half-eaten to the plate and rests his head in his hands.

 _That was not how I wanted that to go,_ he thinks, and it starts out wry but ends  with his plate pushed out of the way so he can press his forehead into the table and wrap his arms around himself.

Before he can swing back into a funk, however, a bit of backbone asserts itself. Pride, frustration, or perhaps just a natural disinclination towards quiet moping raise Julio’s head from the kitchen table and his grip on his ribs becomes a brace rather than a comfort.

He stands, putting what purpose he can muster into the scrape of his chair legs on the kitchen linoleum and the unfortunately soft thump of his stocking feet as he heads back for his bedroom. _This_ , he thinks, _is pointless. You’re being pointless, pendejo. Suck it the fuck up and_ do _something about it._

Sitting on his bed again, though, he realizes he’s not really sure what he _can_ do about it, or what he wants to do about it. Another way he’s not like Daniel, really, or come to that, his sister. He doesn’t know if he wants to be- out, he guesses. Actually, no. He does know and knows well, at that, that he doesn’t.

Daniel’s gonna get fucking kicked out one day, they both know it. Julio doesn’t think his mom would do that to him- she’s always been the one supporting Manuela’s crazy ideas and if she didn’t have to work all day she’d probably be right out there with her, which doesn’t exactly scream “complete bigot,” but there’s a Gulf-wide gap between, _Sure, in general I like democratic politics and civil rights_ and _My son’s a loca and I’m totally fine with that._

And why the fuck would he want to go around school yelling about it? Or, he doesn’t know, dressing like it or talking like it or whatever. Fucking normality’s underrated.

Manuela’s marches are all very well and good but he knows they keep the queers and the boys in makeup and the girls with too-short hair in the back. Don’t want to hurt the cause, after all. Doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot of reward there.

And. Well. He’s already lost a best friend over it, hasn’t he?

Julio growls through his teeth and flops backwards onto the bed. That leaves him. (And Daniel, but Julio’s not giving Daniel the pleasure of thinking about him right now.) _So how do I want this to go?_

He closes his eyes. _I’m Julio and I like girls_ , he thinks, something that he’d never have articulated to himself before, but that was and is true nonetheless. _I’m Julio and I like boys_ , he thinks, something new and slippery and yet not quite the queasiness that had almost overcome him at la Boca del Cielo. _I’m Julio and I like girls and boys_ , he thinks, and, _That’s fine_.

 

*

 

In the end, lying down and closing his eyes sends him drifting off. It’s a pleasant nap, all things considered, and he’s even more annoyed than usual when Manuela bursts into his bedroom.

“Get up, Julito, Mamá put a two-day limit on door-closed sulking and your time is up!”

“Fuck the fuck _off_ , Manuela,” Julio snaps, scowling at the way his voice cracks with sleep.

“No, no can do. You’re lying fully dressed on bed at two in the afternoon, you’ve probably eaten nothing but bread since yesterday evening, since you didn’t come to dinner- Mamá’s disappointed, by the way- and your funk is messing up the apartment.” Manuela throws his sneakers at him. “Since you’re not doing anything useful, you’re coming with me.”

Julio scowls at her. She’s dressed in her march clothes, dull colored and unremarkable, hair tucked up under her stupid camo cap, like she thinks she’s Che Guevara or something.

“To a protest? No mames, Manuela, no!”

“Come on, it’s not that bad,” Manuela tells him, smirking. “It’s _family bonding_.”

“You’ll just stick me somewhere with a pot to bang or something and go off to plot or shout things or whatever,” Julio retorts. “Not much bonding going on there. And it’s _hot._ ”

“We’ll be _sharing interests_ ,” Manuela says, and it really is useless arguing with her, especially when she’s like this.

Besides, she said Mamá had been disappointed. Julio hates disappointing his mother.

 _“Fine,_ ” he says. “Perra.”

“ _Fine_ ,” she replies. “Escuincle. Bring water.”

They keep bickering through the car ride and the walk up the last few blocks to the Zócalo. Manuela never parks near the protest sites. A few years ago, the squabbling would have turned nasty, but Julio likes to think he’s grown up a little since then. Manuela starting university had helped, too -harder to be jealous of the “smart one” when you weren’t at the same school anymore. So they joke and scrap their way to the severe facade of the Corte Suprema, not quite in the Plaza. Probably thirty people are already there, milling about in the shade with signs and megaphones and the occasional skillet. Some are obviously from the teacher’s university right next door, some he recognizes vaguely from other marches he’s attended with Manuela, mostly people from her feminist group, some just look like general students. And the police, of course, always, standing just beyond the sharp line of the building’s shadow.

A couple of the chotas turn to look at them, and Manuela immediately stops joking. Julio recognizes her march face, the set of her jaw. They stride past, Manuela with her shoulders squared and chin up, Julio keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.

There are no police closer to the group -still just watching, for now- so Julio lifts his head and studies the group as they approach, shading his eyes against the sun. Further back, protected from the policemen’s eyes by the bulk of the group, he sees two women who might be lay sisters, judging by the head coverings, and a cluster of young people right at the back, chatting together and gesturing. They stand out from the rest of the unattached students, though Julio can’t quite place how. The closeness of their bodies, perhaps, or the way they’re holding themselves, individually and as a group. It’s distinct.

Manuela sweeps up to Agustina, a tall photography grad student with short, spiky dark hair and wide hips who shares leadership with Manuela. Julio drags his feet a little- Agustina has always slightly intimidated him. He comes up to Manuela again just as Agustina is gesturing towards the knot of young folk at the back and saying, “They’re buena gente, promise. I met them through the Semana Cultural Lésbica-Gay that CCG did last semester, and I know one of them from photo too. They’re interested.”

Manuela’s saying, “They’re welcome if they’re interested and you’re vouching for them,” but Julio is only half listening. He’s always sort of suspected that Agustina might be some shade of queer, but he didn’t know she was open about it. Manuela never mentioned it, and she’s talking with her comfortably right now. Mainly, though, he’s not listening because he’s studying the group in the back, five in all, looking them up and down, searching for signs of- well, he’s not really sure what. Difference, or maybe sameness.

He’s brought back to himself somewhat unwillingly when Manuela claps a hand on his shoulder.

“What do you want to do today?” she asks. “Theme is corruption in the judiciary and the unfair selection of juries especially, action is to make a ronda of the plaza and draw attention, then come back and make some noise as the courts adjourn.”

“I’d like somebody to stay with the two Dominicans over there, just in case someone takes extra umbrage, or same with the new people,” adds Agustina, nodding towards the lay sisters and the cluster of, well, queers. “It’s their first time out with us, so somebody who knows who the leaders are can help them keep up- and I also think that if it goes bad they’ll be the ones first targeted and there’s always more safety in larger numbers.”

“Yeah,” says Julio a little awkwardly. “Yeah, sure, este, I’ll go with- with-

Words fail him- what should he call them?- and he just gestures towards the little subgroup.

Manuela looks at him sharply. “Are you sure?” she asks.

 _“Yes,_ I’m sure.”

“Well, okay, but please-”

“I think he’s got it, Manu,” Agustina interrupts. She's giving him an even look.

“Okay then,” Manuela says, though she seems a little perturbed still.

“Come on, I’ll introduce you,” says Agustina, and leads him back into the coolness of the Corte Suprema’s shadow.

 

*

 

Agustina actually only manages to introduce him to one person, Senya, another photo postgrad with very curly mousy hair and a way of standing still that makes him seem languidly draped on the air itself. They shake hands and say their pleasantries, then Manuela calls Agustina away to sort out a great batch of newly arrived people with a banner.

She hurries away, and Julio is left staring at five strangers, all older than him, feeling horribly awkward. _I did not think this through!_ he thinks. _Puta madre, did I think they’d just magically sniff out the queer on me and I’d fit right in? I know shit about politics and less about art!_

Out loud he says, “Este, hi. I’m Julio; I’m Manuela’s brother.”

He trails off, but before it can become (more) uncomfortable, a solid, squarish guy who looks to be not much older than Julio offers his hand to shake and smiles.

“Hi. I’m Jaime, it’s good to meet you.” He has a very deep voice and a firm handshake. “I’m art history at UNAM.” Julio smiles at him, feeling a bit more at ease.

Almost as soon as he releases Jaime’s hand, however, a short girl with very dark brown skin set off by violently lime green ringlets sticks her hand out, smiling broadly.

“Gusto, Julio! I’m Deyanira, I’m a sculpture undergrad, I’m at UNAM too, how are you?” She barely seems to pause between words or sentences, and she’s smiling wide enough that her eyes crinkle up in the corners.

“I’m good, thanks,” Julio manages before Deyanira pulls forward another student, tall and lanky and shy-looking.

“This is Maritza, they’re not an art student, they’re just a geek who likes visual art and is too shy to introduce themself, so I’m doing it for them.”

“Hi, good to meet you,” says Julio, feeling a few words behind. “Uh, sorry, but what’s ‘elle’? What’s the ‘them’?”

“It’s what I use instead of ‘ella’ or ‘él’ to identify myself,” says Maritza quietly. They’re still not quite looking at Julio, giving him soft, infrequent glances instead. “I’m not a man or a woman, so I don’t use masculine or feminine pronouns. Just use an ‘e’ instead for the adjectives; it’s easy once you get used to it.”

“I- I will, thanks,” says Julio, sort-of understanding but not quite getting the time to process before another guy, chubby and bearded, comes forward to shake his hand.

“Martín, painting. I do oils.”

“You should _see_ what he does with oils,” Deyanira puts in, sounding too salacious to be talking about canvases, although Julio can’t actually imagine all that much to do with oil paints salaciously.

“Where do you go?” Martín continues, ignoring Deyanira with the ease of apparent long practice.

“Well, I’ve actually only just graduated, but I’ll be going to UNAM in the fall,” says Julio.

“Congratulations,” murmurs Maritza, and Deyanira asks, “What concentration?”

“La bioquímica diagnóstica,” he says, and laughs a little when Deyanira clutches at her heart and pretends to swoon. “It’s not that bad!”

“I’m an art student so I don’t have to deal with that shit,” she retorts, smile getting improbably wider when she sees Julio smiling.

“I thought you were an art student so you didn’t have to deal with math,” drawls Seyna.

“Or literature,” says Jaime.

“Diagnostic _biochemistry_ ?” Deyanira says, “That _is_ math, and every field has literature, right, Julio?”

“No, don’t encourage her!” says Jaime. “Really she’s an art student so that professors can’t dock her for that kind of logic.”

Julio grins full out, and they fall into an easy conversation about math and breadth requirements and certain professors at UNAM to be avoided. It’s not like the easy sorts of conversations he’s had with Tenoch and Daniel and Saba- sometimes they say things that go way over his head; sometimes he thinks they might be teasing him; he can’t help but stare a little hungrily- but it’s good.   

Agustina comes back briefly to give them a banner, since nobody brought signs, and the group swells until it starts spilling out of the pool of shade. Manuela begins separating people into groups and forming a rough line, her feminists at the head and others filling in behind, loose students assigned to groups that catch their interest. The color of the sunlight shades goldenrod; Julio opens his mouth to breathe it in, thinking for one silly moment that it might taste like syrup.

Manuela doesn’t put them at the very end, but close to it. There’s a bit of a kerfuffle when the Dominicans refuse to stand in front of or behind them; Manuela just sends them up a row and replaces them with a gaggle of teaching students.

Senya curls his lip very elegantly but nobody else reacts much. Julio crosses his arms and resists the urge to sink into the group of students behind them. He likes these people. But his shoulders hunch unwillingly, and the conversation, already interrupted by the shuffle, dies completely. They silently organize themselves along their banner, _¡Cortan las cortes corruptas!_ not terribly witty but certainly visible in red paint. Julio finds himself next to Maritza at the far left, hanging on to an exclamation point.

They’re quiet. Julio can’t think of anything to say. Manuela picks up her megaphone and one of the teaching students is hefting a saucepan with a rather worrisome gleam in her eye, and they’re off.  

The air in the plaza is at that weird stage where it feels like it’s just the same temperature as Julio’s insides, just his skin in between melting from the outside and in. He’s opened his mouth to pant like a dog before they even get to the Palacio Nacional, but it doesn’t help. The air just slides over his tongue and into his lungs like it’s found equilibrium.

It’s a very long ronda around the Zócalo, and since it appears neither he nor Maritza know the chants, simple and repetitive as they are, they walk in a bubble of quiet, Deyanira a few feet away holding up _cortes_ and yelling each chant at the top of her lungs.

Julio watches the lay sisters and wonders how they’re holding up in the heat in their long sleeves and skirts and headscarves.

“Why are they even here if they’re not for-” _us_ -“everyone?” he blurts out, and he was trying to, he honestly thought he was making a joke of it,  but it comes out too sincerely bewildered, too serious.

“I guess I just don’t get it,” he says. The sun beats down.

Maritza tips their head down and looks at him out of the corner of their eye. It doesn’t feel judgmental. Julio squirms a little anyway, stares down at the dot of the exclamation point. There’s a little splotch of red on one side that makes it more triangular than anything.

“Some people compartmentalize too well,” Maritza says. “They can draw a line between justice in the courts and justice for people like me and add another category they call divine justice to make it all fit for them and see nothing wrong about that.” They sigh and are quiet again, marching along in rhythm to the teaching student with the saucepan.

“It’s still weird that they care, though,” says Julio. “If they don’t. Care.”

“People are weird,” Maritza says. “You care, no?”

It feels loaded. “I,” Julio says. “I don’t know. Not really. It just seems, y’know, like, what’s the difference? And it’s all so big.”

Maritza is quiet. Julio cringes a little inside, but keeps walking in time. They pass into the evening shadow, coming back around to the court building. More people have joined them as they walked around the plaza, and they’re making quite a racket, the chotas walking like hawks with their hands on their batons, but nothing’s going to come of it today. Julio doesn’t know why he knows. Something about the heat.

They shout and chant and bang and wave banners until the sun starts to go down, the clay-dust smell of the stone of the plaza rising up as the air cools. The silence between him and Maritza passes through uncomfortable to awkward, then to a fact, there between them.

The judges and jurists and lawyers and secretaries start coming out of the building, some balking at the protesters, some skirting the group anxiously, some walking right through with their heads high, others appearing to not even notice, their noses buried in files or loose papers. Some stop, and talk. Julio sees Agustina handing a little flyer to a young woman in a white silk blouse, and Manuela talking to two young men in suits. A middle-aged man who looks like he must be a lawyer walks by with his tie in his hand, unbuttoning his collar. He nods to Julio as he passes, a fatherly sort of gesture.

Julio doesn’t know what comes over him, but he feels his tongue loosen. “We’re here for justice!” he blurts, and feels like a moron _immediately_ , his voice not loud enough for a shout and cracking in the middle and it just sounds _stupid_. What has _he_ got to yell about?

The lawyer guy turns a little, though, and gives a little wave with the hand with the tie in it. “Me too, m’ijo,” he says, and continues on across the Zócalo. A little quiet falls again.

“See?” Maritza says into it. “All the big things come down into little things.”

It doesn’t make much sense, but Julio thinks he might get it, a little.

 

*

 

He and Manuela are quiet in the car driving home. He thinks he might be a little sunburnt, on the cheeks and nose. Leaning against the cool window glass helps.

Manuela keeps taking deep breaths like she’s about to say something but keeps letting them out. It takes until they’re four blocks away for her to say, “I was surprised that you went with Agustina’s friends today.”

“Yeah,” Julio says, swallows. “Yeah, they’re- they’re cool.”

Manuela says, “I guess I thought…”

“What?”

“I don’t know.”

Julio sucks in a breath and finds that it quavers. He takes his cheek off the window. “Manuela, do you think I’m- do you think I’m narrow-minded or something? Do you think I’m not-”

He doesn’t know how to finish. Manuela is quiet.

“I think you’ve always lived in a very small world,” she says, after a beat. There’s no inflection to her voice. Julio feels his nose start to tingle. He’s quiet for the last block of the drive.

Manuela pulls into an open span of curb and shuts off the engine, locks up the steering wheel. Before she can open the door, he reaches out and puts his hand on her wrist. They stay there for a couple seconds. They both have red paint on their fingers from the signs.

“I wouldn’t mind going again,” Julio says, keeping his voice steady. “To a protest.”

“Okay, manito,” Manuela replies, and now her voice sounds kind of shaky. “We can do that.”

 

*

 

There are really only two weeks and change left in the summer, but they seem to fly and drag in equal measure. Julio doesn’t think he could name the day of the week, let alone the date.

He sleeps in, he studies. He gets his book lists and almost cries when he sees the prices, but he finds them secondhand and he manages. There’s a jam stain in one of them and he feels something like pride.

He talks with his mother about university. They’ll be the first in the family, he knows, him and Manuela, and his mother always ends these conversations a little teary. They go out for ice cream one day, the three of them, and end up taking cones and walking around the little weedy park behind their building, and his mamá laughs and laughs when Julio and Manuela chase each other around like they’re little kids again.

He goes to more protests with Manuela, maybe five. A couple are big, a couple are small, one gets broken up by Agustina when they realize there are more than twice as many cops as protesters. He finds new people to talk to every time, about corrupt judges and sexual assault and businesses destroyed by police and missing children. He talks to a teaching student once and she tells him that the thing that frustrates her most is knowing the truth and knowing she’ll have to disregard it to teach.

“The truth about what?” he asks her, and she replies, “The truth about history and who makes it.”

He runs into Martín and Senya again at one of them, and feels a little uncomfortable. He feels like he can’t say anything smart enough, and is mostly quiet. He runs into Jaime and Maritza at a different one and feels better. He feels like he doesn’t _have_ to say anything smart enough, and is mostly quiet in a different way. He’s getting the hang of e-ending adjectives.    

 

*

 

He and Daniel meet up for the first time since the debacle with Tenoch on that last weekend.

Andrés is the one to organize it, actually -figures; Daniel is not known for his tendency to start conflict when he knows he’s in the wrong- but he comes all the same. They sit awkwardly on Julio’s living room couch for a stretchy minute or two, but when Andrés pointedly knocks Daniel’s knee with his own for the second time, Daniel sighs gustily and says, “Look, I’m sorry.”

Julio sort of shrugs and mutters something indistinctly conciliatory, but Daniel shakes his head and says again, “Sorry. That really wasn’t cool what I did.”

Julio wishes Andrés wasn’t there. “No,” he says anyway.

Daniel ducks his head. “Sorry.”

“Yeah,” mutters Julio, because he’s not going to say that it’s fine when it’s not, but he’s not going to hold a grudge over it. Anything that’s got Daniel ashamed enough to actually apologize probably won’t happen again.

“I met a couple people at a protest,” he offers instead. “Lots of them go to UNAM.”

Daniel nods and asks a few questions, and Andrés asks about the protests, and the situation slides, begrudgingly, into a conversation.

If the conversation involves a lot more words like _sistema judicial_ and _homofobia_ than Julio’s exactly been used to with Daniel, well, it’s still an improvement.

 

*

 

The afternoon with Daniel feels good, but it’s just a brief respite from the start of university looming ever closer. It’s a week, then a work week, then the weekend, and then it’s the night before. Textbooks stacked next to his bed, a pack of mechanical pencils from Manuela, a special dinner his mom used an entire afternoon and evening to make.

Julio lies awake in bed for hours that night. He thinks.

He doesn’t know anyone his age at UNAM. Half the upperclassmen he does know are either his sister or people he wouldn’t have been caught dead with in secundaria.

He doesn’t have a best friend anymore. It hurts and it’s true. He doesn’t really have anything- not a best friend, not a group of Charolastras, not a single person he shares history with. He’s just Julio Zapata to every other student, and nobody knows who the hell that is. But that’s- that’s not awful.

He casts back over the last couple months. He has a blank slate, he thinks, whether he wants it or not. It’s not fair, because the pinche vida isn’t fucking fair, but it’s what he’s got. He’s never going to end up at his mother’s desk. He’s never going to let someone tell him what exactly he can do and study and want.

If that means- and he pauses in his thought, a little mental swallow- if it means he can’t see Tenoch anymore, if it means Tenoch doesn’t _want_ him anymore- that’s what it means. It doesn’t seem he’s got much other choice, really.  

A blank slate is what he’s got, even if the erasing hurt, so he’d better make the best of it.

He thinks, _nobody would call me naco_ , _nobody would know about Cece and Ana, nobody would even think to ask_. _People like me; I’m making friends. New friends. I like them._

He could really start over. He could, actually, get better. Be the kind of person that doesn’t get deservedly broken up with in bathrooms, get past the _sex, swearing, drunk_. Give of himself like the sea. And, actually, he has a couple things. He has Daniel and maybe Manuela’s friends, on their way to being his friends. He has something he’s good at and nobody to overshadow him. He has- well, at the risk of being a fucking cliché, he has a second chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slang: perra I think you can guess, escuincle is something like brat/urchin (a little harsher, at least as I’ve heard it), chota is cop. I didn’t actually use this word, but all the references to pot banging or similar are part of a cacerolazo, or a sort of protest especially popular in the whole Southern Cone, Colombia, and Venezuela (among some other places, and maybe Mexico too), which involves banging really loudly on pots and pans to draw attention. It might just be a South America thing, but I bet it’s not that much of a stretch to transfer banging on kitchen implements to just about anywhere. 
> 
> The CCG Agustina mentions is the Círculo Cultural Gay, a D.F.-based LGBT group with a special focus on awareness-raising through art during the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, though I believe them to be defunct now. The CCG was not formally attached to UNAM, and UNAM itself does not appear (based on this (http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6ad4814.html) article) to have had any LGBT student groups during most of that period. However, for several years the CCG hosted the mentioned Semana Cultural Lésbica-Gay on campus, which involved various exhibitions and performances of queer art by queer artists. Seems reasonable to me that there could be connections through photo/politics student Agustina. 
> 
> I’ve heard the “elle” pronoun in queer hispanohablante spaces before, although that was in a pretty specific space in Buenos Aires, and again amongst some Chicanx friends, and I don’t know how it reads in other places, particularly 1999 Mexico City. But further Internet research seems to suggest it's used in other places, so. Elle es un cerebrite tímide. 


	4. Chapter 4

 

He has a lot of fucking homework.

All philosophical late-night musings aside, what Julio really has is a fully functional apartment high-rise of homework, an active stratovolcano of homework, an overachieving air traffic control tower of homework.

Half of it is mindless, numbing busywork, stuff he already did in secundaria but which takes forever _anyway_. Half of what’s left is new bio, new chem, new math, which is sometimes revelatory and sometimes confusing and sometimes just plain bafflingly boring. The other remaining quarter is prereqs and breadth requirements, despite his test scores getting him out of plenty of those, a damn art history class he let Jaime talk him into and now deeply regrets, French with that friend of Daniel’s, Azucena.

Their ability to talk him into things is worrying, but not as worrying as the way his heart thumps when they smile at him, or say something particularly intelligent, or ask for his input on classwork.

He balances equations with ease and writes papers with difficulty and does and redoes labs, and sometimes Manuela will still take him out to protests on weekends, and Daniel and Azucena come over when their class schedules permit to watch TV and commiserate about school, and his mom has instituted family dinner night on Thursdays, and the homework tar pit shrinks and metastasizes with what seems like the mere sadistic whims of his professors.

It’s good. It’s hard but it’s good.

The term passes, and it’s break, and the next term starts, and he takes art history again to see Jaime and French again to see Azucena. Daniel keeps coming over to see him- allegedly, but really to laugh at his stupid crushes. They don’t seem so stupid when they both start holding his hand on the way to class.

He knows it’s still years before he really gets to do something useful in a lab, but he’s thrilled with his first centrifuge class (despite the Serum Incident his first day). He decides he likes hormonal analysis pretty well, and that toxicology is fascinating. He’s doing well.

He pushes and pushes against the unexpectedly elastic boundaries of his new life, and starts to settle. He starts swimming again, at the university pool.

That whole year, there are only three events that disturb his new schedule.

 

 

*

 

The first is this:

Daniel finally lets loose all that bottled-up courage and resentment he’s been holding onto since secundaria, and comes out to his dad. Julio never does get the full story, but judging by the introduction- Daniel late one night crying in horrible, stifled gasps on Julio’s doorstep with the beat-up old duffel bag he used to use for his gym stuff by his feet- he judges it doesn’t go well.

Daniel doesn’t even try for his usual brashness, just says, quietly, “He kicked me out. Your place was closest,” and starts crying again. Julio pulls him inside by the wrist and hugs him, holds him for minutes until his mother comes out of her room in pajamas, drawn by the noise. Julio sits Daniel down on the sofa and takes his mom into the kitchen.

“Daniel and his dad had a fight.” He looks at the stovetop, pulls down one of the saucepans to have something to do with his hands. “He might want to stay here for a while, I don’t know. Is that-?”

“Is he all right?” his mother asks.

“He’s- We’re- Mamá, you know- I don’t-”

She stops his babbling by taking the saucepan from his hands. “I know. I’m going to heat water for chocolate. He can certainly stay if he needs to, although we might need a little help with food eventually. You go get him some blankets, and for god’s sake try to get ahold of someone who can take him in for longer than we can.”

Julio nods. “I’m going to see if he’s okay and then I’ll see if he wants to call his- Andrés.”

His mother gives him a quick smile, filling up the pot at the sink. “I’m sure his Andrés will be glad to know. Now go.”

Julio half-runs from the kitchen, grabs a blanket from the linen cupboard next to Manuela’s room, and runs back to the front room to find Daniel in just the same position on the sofa as he’d left him. Julio considers draping the blanket around his shoulders but decides against it, handing it to Daniel a little awkwardly instead.

“Mamá says you can stay as long as you need to,” he tells him. “She’s making chocolate.”

Daniel gives a miserable little half nod. He’s no longer crying, but his breaths have the measured shaky evenness that suggests he could start again at any moment.

“Do you- do you want to tell me what happened?” Julio asks, feeling utterly out of his depth.

Daniel shakes his head, sniffs a little.

“Okay, mano. I’m- here if you want,” says Julio. “Is it okay if I call Andrés?”

“Please don’t,” Daniel replies, voice scratchy. “I don’t want him to. See me.” He gestures at his face, and Julio swears silently and runs back to the kitchen to grab a handful of paper towels for Daniel’s eyes and nose.

Daniel takes them and blows his nose but doesn’t seem inclined to offer anything more. Julio tries very hard not to fidget. He has no idea what to do, but figures Daniel probably shouldn’t be left alone. He leans into his shoulder a bit, ignoring the part of himself that’s screaming about the awkwardness. Daniel leans back.

The sound of the water in the pot beginning to boil seems to rouse him a little. He blows his nose again, clears his throat.

Just as Julio’s mamá starts pouring the chocolate into mugs, Daniel whispers, “I thought I didn’t care. But I do.”

Julio feels a tingle start in his own nose. “I know, I know you do,” he whispers back, and leans in even harder.

The three of them are up all night. Daniel finally consents to let Julio call Andrés, and Julio’s mother takes Daniel into her own room to ‘talk particulars,’ as she calls it. Julio wonders if Daniel really wants to talk particulars, but she gives him a no-nonsense look when he opens his mouth to protest, and in the end he trusts her. When they emerge, Daniel is carrying a stack of pillows almost as tall as he is, and doesn’t look like he’s been crying any more.

Andrés barrels in just as the sky outside is beginning to lighten, going straight for Daniel with hardly a hello for Julio and his mother. Julio doesn’t mind; he gets it.

He takes the opportunity to slip out of the front room and back into the kitchen, where he leans his forehead against the cool wood of the cabinets. He feels completely wrung-out, which seems unfair to Daniel, but there you have it. It’s just he’s not used to this sort of thing at all.

He starts when his mother places her hand on his shoulder. She doesn’t move to hug him or try to say anything, just rests her hand beside his neck as though trying to soothe a fever.

Finally, Julio feels he has to say something. “I’m okay.”

“I’m sure, corazón,” she replies softly.

“Did Daniel tell you if he was going to stay here or with Andrés?” Julio asks, keeping his voice equally low.

“With us for a few days, just until Andrés can organize his apartment to fit two.”

Julio squeezes his eyes shut, nodding against the wood. His mother adds a second hand to his other shoulder.

“It’s hard, m’ijo,” she murmurs. “But you’re doing a good thing.”

Julio nods once more, then turns around. His mother lets her hands fall back to her sides. On impulse, he hugs her tightly around the shoulders, muttering, “Thank you.”

She kisses his forehead and says nothing. She doesn’t have to.

Julio goes back out to the living room.

 

*

 

The second is the election.

Julio feels like he should have been with Manuela when it happened, but he’s actually with Jaime and Azucena, and that’s well enough too.

Jaime’s on the sofa in the living room, Julio bracketed between his knees on the floor, Azucena’s head in his lap. Jaime’s playing with his hair, soft, soft, and Julio lets his fingers flutter along Azucena’s collarbones and the tendons of her neck. _Like sea foam_ , he thinks, brushing against the downy hair behind her ears, and can’t even bring himself to chastise himself for the soppiness of it.

The TV is on soft in the background, playing the evening news, just white noise. Julio knows they’ll be announcing the election results today, but in all honesty, despite all the marches he’s been to and hours he’s spent listening to Manuela, and even in spite of his own vote, he doesn’t think anything is going to change. He hardly spares the talking heads a thought.

And then Jaime’s hand tightens suddenly in his hair.

“Ow _,_ ” he says, aggrieved, twisting to look up at Jaime. Azucena makes a questioning sort of noise, eyes closed.

Jaime just grabs the remote and turns the volume up on the TV. Julio can’t make much out of the first initial blare of noise, but Azucena sits bolt upright, suddenly wide awake.

“Did they say _Fox?_ ”

It’s Julio’s turn to start, and he turns away from Jaime towards the screen. And there it is. _Vicente Fox gana la presidencia_ , scrolling across the bottom of the screen as clear as anything. _PAN toma el ejecutivo; la primera derrota del PRI en más de 71 años._

“What,” he says. He’s too shocked to even make it a question.

“They lost?” asks Azucena. “We won?”

Jaime just spreads his hands like he can’t even find words. The stay in place for another moment, just looking at the TV. Then Azucena yanks Jaime right off the couch, yelling, “They lost! We won!” and laughing, and Jaime and Julio can’t help but join her, lying in a tangle on the floor and cheering.

“PRI still basically has the Congress, and Fox is in with a coalition, who knows what's really going to happen now,” says Jaime, but Azucena claps a hand over his mouth and orders him to just shut up and be happy. And even though it wasn’t directed at him, Julio does the same.

Jaime’s right, and it’s not as though turnout was even that high, or that the individual state governments and petty elected officials are that different, but it _feels_ like a gorgeous sea breeze has swept over the land and made it new. It’s Julio’s entire life, the system that made his schools indifferent and his mother’s work unstable and his friends expert dancers around the unspoken loose boards of whose father had position and whose money and whose both. It’s like Tenoch’s country club has had its gate broken down. It feels like a new world.

“Shut up and be happy,” he echoes, and for a few blissful minutes, he is.

 

*

 

It’s only a month later that the third interruption comes.

Julio’s beginning to see Jaime’s point. It’s not that nothing has changed, it’s just that very _little_ has changed, and the pace doesn’t appear likely to pick up. But- he can still feel that sea change. Now he knows it’s possible, it’s so much easier to listen to Manuela, to go to marches, to speak honestly. He feels he walks taller now.

But even budding activists and college students have to go to dentists’ appointments sometimes, and it’s on his way to one that he runs into Tenoch. And the world closes up around him.

 

*

 

Julio goes for coffee with Tenoch because it’s easier than saying no. It’s the done thing.

They manage a few stilted words of conversation on the way to the café, but walk mostly in silence. Tenoch wears his hair slicked back now, apparently, and his face has lost a little of its baby-pudge. His jacket smells expensive. Julio breathes it in and feels like he’s choking. All the thoughts whirling about in his head won’t let him speak.

He remembers driving through the jacaranda-lined back roads of Chiapas with him, and coming up with the Manifiesto Charolastra, and racing each other in the pool. He thinks about kissing him and holding him in Boca del cielo, and Luisa screaming at them both. He thinks of Cecelia and Ana, and _sex, swearing, drunk_ , and all the stupid, heedless things he’d done because of Tenoch and for Tenoch and with Tenoch. He steals a glance at Tenoch’s face again, and feels his stomach drop because he thinks he would _still_ do those things, if Tenoch would just look at him again. If Tenoch hadn’t run away.

He thinks how much Tenoch still matters to him, despite his rich-boy affectations and his carelessness and the way he left and never called again, never came to Julio’s doorstep. And he thinks of Azucena defending him before she even knew him, and gentle, soft-spoken Jaime, and he feels sick with the emotions congealing in his gut. He wants to apologize for leaving and he wants to demand that Tenoch do the same, get down on his knees the way they did once with Luisa. He’s spent a whole year hurting and seeing Tenoch again has just ripped off the scab he’d been pretending successfully wasn’t there at all.

He ducks into the first café they pass just to have a chance to stop walking.

They sit in a silence that’s if anything even more awkward than the walk. Julio stirs the sugar into his coffee long after it’s dissolved, listening to the clink of metal against the china, not looking away from Tenoch. He doesn’t feel like he can. Tenoch doesn’t so much as glance up at him.

The first thing of real substance either of them say is Julio, asking about Saba. He feels stupid for not piecing it together before now, but it’s like he and Tenoch have split the Charolastras like kids in a divorce, Daniel to Julio and Saba to Tenoch.

Tenoch answers glibly enough, “Real de Catorce,” and then he asks about Daniel. And Julio knows immediately that the conversation has dropped down into metaphor. And he figures that if they’re going to talk around it, his circles will at least be honest.

So he stretches his arms across the back of the booth and spreads across the corner of the table as Tenoch hunches over his coffee.

“De hecho, una loca, güey,” he says, and curls the corners of his mouth up the slightest bit, nods and looks _right_ at Tenoch. _Just go ahead and say it,_ he dares Tenoch silently. _Go ahead and look at me and think it_. And as Tenoch puts down his mug and straightens up slowly, Julio drops his eyes and adds, “His dad kicked him out of the house.”

Tenoch crosses his arms, eyes flickering between them, and Julio refuses to show it, _won’t_ do it, but he knows Tenoch must have been as afraid as him, and now he’s thinking he’s justified.

“Qué mal pedo,” he says, voice a little shaky, and Julio is sorry, sorry, so sorry, but it _hurts_ and he wants Tenoch to be sorry too.

“No,” he says. “Tsh. Está re contento, cabrón. Tiene novio y todo.”

 _No. He’s totally happy. He has a boyfriend and everything._ And Julio smiles as he says it, and thinks as hard as he can, _That could have been_ us. Beneath that, too, he’s daring Tenoch, daring him to ask- _is it you? What about you?_

But this is Tenoch. And he will never, ever ask, and maybe Julio never really understood this before now. Because he keeps his arms crossed, the corners of his mouth turned down. Doesn’t look Julio in the eye for more than an instant. And all he says in reply is, “Then that’s cool.”

Julio doesn’t know what he was expecting, doesn’t know what he would have done if Tenoch _had_ answered, but the rejection still hits him in the solar plexus. Then, when Tenoch doesn’t take so much as a breath to process that and segues directly into boasting about ITAM, Julio feels that nauseating ball of emotion contract down into a little dark point below his heart. All that longing and confusion and indecision, it quiets right down. There’s a little anger left, yes, a little sadness, but beneath it all that’s left is pity. And he knows right then that he doesn’t love Tenoch Iturbide anymore.

“Cool,” he says, “When do you start?” and reaches for a cigarette. He feels shaken, wants something to do with his hands. He supposes he hadn’t realized. Hadn’t realized that he was still in love, at least a little. That Boca del cielo hadn’t let him go that easily, hadn’t realized that he hadn’t changed as much as he’d thought.

The lighter won’t start.

“September,” Tenoch tells him, and Julio keeps clicking hopelessly at the lighter, feeling bereft. Tenoch is still sitting hunched over with his arms crossed protectively in front of him, and Julio feels like he’s in mourning. Because this is Tenoch as he’s always been, of course. No amount of marches and elections and kissing could make him different, could pry him out of his country club and his father’s expectations.

So when Julio grunts, “Economía,” it’s not even a question. It’s an affirmation.

This couldn’t have gone differently, he means. You would never have given up anything to be with me, he means. It all came down to the money in the end, he means. For once, he thinks Tenoch gets what he’s saying under his words. It’s just sad.

He stops looking at Tenoch and stops trying with the lighter. They manage the natural end of that line of questioning on the surface, and then the silence stretches again.

But.

“Did you hear about Luisa?”

Julio snaps his head up. “No.”

Tenoch doesn’t say a thing for too long, but now that Julio’s looking again, he’s leaning forward intently, looking right at Julio.

“What?” he demands, and he means _what happened to Luisa_ and _what do you really mean_ at the same time.

“Se murió,” responds Tenoch. “She died.”  

Julio _gets it_. He gets what Tenoch is trying to say, and apparently that anger isn’t as gone as he thought, because it comes coiling up his throat now, at the thought of Tenoch using beautiful, powerful Luisa as some kind of _pawn_ in this game they’re playing, using her to push Julio away when she’d pushed them together in the first place.

Before he can let the fury loose, though, the waitress interrupts and scatters it all away again. Or perhaps it’s the shock settling in.

“Qué- cómo?” he asks as soon as she’s gone, words tripping over themselves.

Tenoch says, “Cancer,” and Julio feels sick. Tenoch’s face is as straight as anything as he keeps talking, and it’s Julio’s turn to flinch away. Flippantly, Tenoch talks about it spreading, about Chuy and Jano, and Julio _hates_ him.

It’s impossible to imagine Luisa wasting away, dying. He remembers her crying in her room, and kicks himself for thinking it’d all be for Tenoch’s wastrel cousin. Tenoch tells him she died alone, just about when Julio was doing all his dramatic storming out of places. It’s sickening. He can’t look at Tenoch and his flat, intent expression. He mumbles something inane then lapses into silence.

Every part of that week on the road was marred and he didn’t even know it. Everything that came after, everything, was because Luisa was dying on the beach and did things only the dying can do. He looks down at his hands.

Tenoch shifts around audibly, but Julio doesn’t look up. He can’t- he can’t look at Tenoch right now. _He’s made this into nothing,_ he thinks. _Nothing, so he can forget. Luisa, and me. We’re both nothing to you now_.

After a heartbeat Tenoch just stands up, and Julio follows. When Tenoch sticks out his hand he shakes it, when he makes his excuses he nods, when he says they’ll talk again, he agrees. He knows it won’t happen.

Watching Tenoch walk out of the café takes just a second, and then he’s gone. Julio feels it like a knife. It’s as though knowledge of Luisa’s death has raised a wall between him and the boy who pressed his face into her hair as he reached for Tenoch’s hips.

He stares at the coffee cup Tenoch left behind without really seeing it. He thinks of Luisa screaming at them on the road. Tenoch throwing up in the morning. Daniel in two pools of streetlight. Cece swinging her legs on Saba’s bathroom sink. Holding up an exclamation point next to Maritza, Manuela slinging an arm around his shoulders as they make a ronda, lying on the floor in an exultant tangle with Azucena and Jaime, his mother smiling at him over his textbooks.

And he breathes out.

 _Things have already changed,_ he thinks _. Things are changing_.

He raises his hand for the bill, doesn’t wait for change, walks out the door.  

There’s still a dentist’s appointment to go to. Afterwards he has dinner at home with Azucena and Jaime, some last-minute summer homework before term begins, and a sit-in with Maritza and Manuela this weekend. Daniel wants to go swimming with him once the campus opens up and every week he has Thursday night dinner with Mamá and Manuela.

Luisa, wherever she is, has peace.

Tenoch has economía.

Julio keeps his eyes closed as the dentist prods at his gums and offers him advice, leaves as soon as it’s over. He walks home as quickly as he can. It wouldn’t do to be late and make everyone wait on him.

He’ll keep figuring it out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. This is a fic of my heart, really. I saw _Y tu mamá también_ for the first time sometime in May or June, I think, right after I'd broken up with my datefriend of almost three years for reasons not limited to but definitely including some rather nasty internalized biphobic shit on my part. And _Mamá_ was about being young and bi and in transition and sort of confused and not really okay with any/all of it, and losing people because of that, and I just saw myself. One of those formative pieces of media. 
> 
> So I've been working on this fic as I've been working on myself, and there's a lot of me in every character in here. It's so important to me that by the end, Julio really tiene hermana y madre y amigos y novios y todo. He’s happy. It feels a little like posting this is hitting a kind of reset button. So thanks.


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